Word is All Around
by Fat Molly
Summary: This story chronicles the romantic trials and tribulations of one "Bulstrode the Bull-dyke," a self-conscious and awkward Slytherin with imposter syndrome. She is enchanted by extraordinary women in Hogwarts - but one lady in particular challenges her more than the rest, and she falls fast and hard. WEIGHT GAIN - FAT KINK - FAT ADMIRATION - FAT APPRECIATION - DON'T LIKE DON'T READ.
1. Chapter 1

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me.

Note: This fic features a fat! and black!Hermione. Don't like, don't read.

other content: lesbianism, bisexuality, transgender stuff, genderbending, genderqueerness, fat appreciation, erotic weight gain (minor compared to my other stories), imposter syndrome, depression, dealing with complex racial issues, peer pressure, radical changes in beliefs. Also a lot of really cool stuff that doesn't seem content-note worthy.

Written for NR and JK, with kudos to PurpleFluffyCat.

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Millicent Bulstrode looked at the door of the healer's office. It felt like all of the emotions she'd been accumulating over the past several years were crashing into her at once, like opening a drawer with a malevolent genie inside.

The door was finely grained oak, aged a long time. The healer could probably afford it, after having spent so many years in the world of St. Mungo's only to graduate to a quiet private practice in Diagon Alley. The handle of the door had two serpents twining around it, and the knocker was a silver medieval caduceus. It was probably a family heirloom, given that Healer Caius was descended from a long line of alchemists and healers.

She took a deep breath, and withdrew her hand from where she held it extended in front of her. It might have just been her imagination, but she thought that as her calloused hand reached out to take the handle, it sparked with real electricity.

The thought made her immediately sad, for the sparks reminded her of days gone by. The sparks, indeed, reminder Millicent of her. Fire, electricity, sparkles: that was the way she had been. The creativity, imagination, and passion that had been in her eyes. The way her bushy hair, coiled with energy in every seductive spring, surged with blue electricity when she was angry. The way her hands had felt as they touched the most sensitive places on Millicent's body...

...But, Millicent reminded herself, that was why she was here now. To stop feeling so bad about what had happened. To get her back to sorts. And if that meant forgetting everything, well, she was alright with that.

The memories were too painful to endure any longer. She'd gained too much weight. She was too burdened by the shame, the resentment, the despair, and the disgrace. Life was mechanical now, perfunctory, and unmeaningful.

Millicent knew she had to do something to get her back on track. Maybe finally find a boy to marry, to make her mother breathe a sigh of contentment at long last. Maybe someone gay, so they'd be able to have some sort of martial arrangement where they each pursued their own interests privately, but appeared in public together and sexed once or twice to produce suitable offspring. Like Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black, whose open marriage was an open secret amongst the pureblood elite, but significantly less rich.

Yes, that was the best she could hope for now. If she and her love were still together, Millicent might have been game to fight for their rights to be accepted, unconventional as they might have been.

But they weren't. Things had been said. Millicent hadn't budged. Neither had she. And they'd parted, unable to compromise.

It had been devastating for Millicent. Millicent knew she had moved on fairly swiftly, finding solace in her frenzied efforts at the public advocate's office at the Ministry of Magic. Last she heard, it looked like she barely missed Millicent. Oh, what a shame.

Millicent swallowed her pride. This wasn't the time to break down in tears. What a fool Healer Caius would think her! Now was the time to summon courage - the one thing that Millicent had found in herself during her brief, tumultuous courtship with Hermione Granger. She needed to use that courage to get her heart detached from the beautiful mudblood who'd bewitched her mind and ensnared her senses.

Ah yes. Think of Snape. The one man she'd ever crushed on. Use him to fan the flame of her sexuality, that way she might someday find a man halfway appealing.

With a grim smile, she took a deep breath and, gritting herself against her fear, she grasped the handle again, turned it, and opened the door.

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	2. Chapter 2

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

The war hadn't been good to her. Not that it'd been good to anyone, of course. And not that she'd been one of those who had lost the most. No, she'd been, by all accounts, one of the lucky ones - no one in her small family had died, or come close to dying. Her older brother, Rodrick, had never been disturbed from the family's jewelry business operations. To see him in the shop, his hands steady and his stigmatism keeping casual observers away from distracting him, you'd never know that there had been a war.

Her mother was also unaffected, relatively speaking. Marguerite Bulstrode had scarcely moved from her delicate china-plagued parlor the entire duration of the war, her fragile and bittersweet widow's smile barely hinting at the sorrow their world had endured.

But Millicent, she felt like she had lost something with this war. She wasn't entirely sure was so much she could have lost, she realized. She could have died in that final battle, where she never veered from poor foolish Pansy Parkinson's side. She could have lost a limb, which Marguerite would have found infinitely worse. She didn't even lose a button, which was a chronic problem for Millicent, with her too-ample bosom raging against her tidy school button-downs until she started wearing men's clothing, which was strangely more accommodating.

It wasn't even the fact that ultimately, not only had they lost the battle, they'd lost the war. Millicent was as conservative as the rest of them, but only vaguely interested in politics. She would have been content to share a quiet animosity with the Muggleborns for perpetuity. Which was ultimately what the purebloods were getting now, she realized. The Mudblood lovers had won, but there was no requirement that any of the people in favor of Pureblood supremacy cede their views. They were merely required to accommodate where they'd prefer not to. Millicent certainly didn't feel like the right to refuse service to Muggleborns was worth fighting for, but she never said so, because everyone else was interested in fighting to the death over it, and who was she to contradict those whose power was so much greater than hers?

Still, she felt like she had experienced a devastating loss the day of the final battle. And ever since the day she'd returned home from Hogwarts, bloody and exhausted, she'd felt like she was a bit stuck.

Her mother pressed her into service for the summer while the Wizengamot decided what to do with the children who'd been Death Eaters. Millicent was among that number, having nearly completed her seventh year before the Battle of Hogwarts disrupted everything. Would they return to school to complete their exams?

Marguerite was adamant that Millicent do so, given that Millicent had failed to acquire a suitable husband in the six-and-change years she'd already been at school, and would for the meantime have to practice some sort of trade, which necessitated finishing her exams.

Millicent herself wasn't particularly worried about her future. She'd always been fond of reading, and had no particular ambitions aside from continuing to read as much and as frequently as possible. Moreover, Professor Snape had told her that she possessed passable proficiency at potions, and would recommend her as an apprentice, if she so desired, to one of the major manufacturers in Diagon Alley, where she could continue on her training and eventually become a Potions Master, if she so desired.

Millicent was satisfied with this opportunity. She liked potions, for not the least of reasons that she had a major crush on her potions-master-come-headmaster, Severus Snape. As he'd written on many of her papers, she was "competent" at it, though she was "unoriginal."

She didn't mind unoriginal, and the idea that he thought her competent made her soar. Not many people thought she was competent at anything other than being a hulking, fearsome creature standing in the corner, looming over scared first-year Hufflepuffs. Much less did people associate her to have skills at anything as delicate and fragile as potions.

He was, to date, the only crush she'd ever had on a man. Which made the prospect of marrying a man - her mother's age-old expectation - fairly difficult for her to swallow. Her secret love of the female form had long eclipsed this interest in her professor, however.

She'd long held this crush up as a shield - he was a respectable man for any young Slytherin lady to fancy. People at school stopped asking questions about which classmates she was interested in because, over the years, she always answered 'Snape.' They read her as more than a bit ambitious, given their disparity of social roles and her perceptively-grotesque outward appearance (she was fat). However, given that Snape, while a halfblood, was talented and eminently ambitious, he was a perfectly appropriate for any lady's undying infatuation. Indeed, given her absence of other male-centered crushes amongst their peers, it would have been stranger for her to not crush on Severus Snape. But from her standpoint, he was also a safe choice because he was so remarkably unattainable and indecipherable. People gave up trying to figure out what she liked in men. Which was a blessing, because for the most part, she didn't like anything about them.

Instead, over the years, her eyes lingered on various faces that would have been far more dangerous to acknowledge.

For first and second years, Millicent fantasized about Gertrude Jones of Ravenclaw, which house joined them during herbology. Gertrude's hair was always in her face, and her short stature was such that her overdeveloped breasts rested on the too-high worktable as she and Millicent wrestled roots together. Then Gertrude lost her puppy fat, and started going out with the man she'd later marry, the blandly handsome Thenadius Dire, and Millicent never forgave the girl these faults.

For her third year, Millicent hid herself in her books, and became obsessed with fantasies of Irma Pince. The woman was like her, in many ways, she thought (or, more accurately, hoped). A deep-seated scorn for real life, a sense of intentionality in how they approached the stacks, and a disgust towards men. Irma could get away with it better, of course - no one expected a librarian to marry.

Then Millicent's futile fantasies were dashed when she realized Minerva McGonagall's studious attentions to reading were not limited to contents of the Transfiguration section, but extended to Irma Pince's office. After seeing the women emerge from said office one too many times, not a hair out of place on either of them, Millicent had seen McGonagall shyly glance around the library to confirm there were no witnesses, and then McGonagall had clasped the librarian in her arms and kissed her deeply, and the librarian responded in kind. Then they'd cleared their throats, patted their buns, and walked away from each other with brisk steps, their heels clicking a little bit more cheerfully than before.

Millicent's heart was broken yet again, but much deeper than before. Irma had gently been grooming her, Millicent had felt. The cryptic librarian had offered Millicent books by Daphne du Maurier, Sheridan Le Fanu, and Colette, among others, and as soon as she began to turn their pages, Millicent knew that her heart had been seen by the tight-lipped librarian. For this sake, Millicent still forgave Ms. Pince the sin of suggesting Muggle literature, even though she cried for weeks after that moment of seeing Pince and McGonagall together.

The third crush actually had blossomed into something more, though it had been brief. During her fifth year, Millicent had been drinking firewhiskey and smoking secretly in the astronomy tower of a late autumn afternoon, when who should join her but the vivacious Gryffindor, Ginevra Weasley. The girl's face was stained with tears and Millicent, for lack of any better idea, offered the distraught Gryffindor a pull on her pipe. The girl had accepted, and this had led to an uncomfortable hour of the girl blathering at Millicent about her unrequited love for one arsehole, Harry Potter.

Millicent knew a little something about unrequited affection, and murmured consoling words about how crummy it was.

And Ginevra did something that no one else had ever done with Millicent. Ginevra had asked about her own experiences with love. Not who she fancied - but about her actual experiences.

She didn't know why she trusted the Gryffindor. But somehow, after an hour of listening to the Gryffindor cry, Millicent felt like she couldn't keep it in anymore. She found herself saying things about the librarian she'd never said before to anyone at all, much less a Gryffindor.

In retrospect, Ginevra was probably the worst choice to confide in about these kinds of feelings that were widely acknowledged to be perverse. Ginevra came from one of the most openly heterosexual families in the wizarding world. But it ended up being alright. She had offered Millicent her hand, and stroked Millicent's palm with her thumb.

And then somehow, the girls had ended up in bed together.

Their relationship, if they could call it that, had lasted only a month. The effort of finding quiet house-neutral places to fuck each other soon became too much of an obstacle for two people who didn't love each other. That, and Ginevra made it clear that this wasn't something that would be able to last - she had a mission to date as many boys as possible until she found the one that inspired Harry Potter to grow up and notice her. After one too many close calls, Ginevra had said she'd let Millicent know when they'd next meet up, and never got around to it. MIllicent didn't mind. Ginevra, for all her inventiveness and competence in the art of sex, seemed mostly keen on exploring for the sake of exploring. Also, she and Millicent had basically nothing in common, tacitly ignoring the fact that they were on opposite sides of the emerging war.

Despite all this, Millicent was vaguely jealous of Harry Potter of the future. Ginevra was truly a catch. That, and Millicent had felt invigorated by this brief liaison, no matter how inconsequential it might have been to the other girl. It made her feel like her lustful thoughts weren't just fantasies that were going to come crashing down when she finally got it on with another lady. Instead, she felt her passion overcome her with a driving need to get satisfaction, in whatever form she could.

She was happy to find some common ground in the heart and mind of one of her house-sisters, finally, at long last. Solome Zabini was another person who, like her, was fondest of the fairer sex, and she wore her long grey hair in a braid that went in big beautiful spirals on top of her head. She was petite, and thin, and her skin was dark.

They grew close in Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad. A seventh-year to Millicent's fifth-year, Salome was older than her years, and tended to be quite vivacious and outwardly interested in boys. It was only when Solome, a prefect, caught Millicent with one of her muggle books by Djuna Barnes, and then liltingly offered her a copy of Zami by Audre Lorde.

While it was a bit radical for her tastes, Millicent read it and returned it with a smile and a note, which she had smudged with a rare application of lipstick.

Salome was quick on the uptake, and invited Millicent to come and use the prefect's bathroom that evening. This was the beginning of Millicent's first real relationship.

To the outward world, they were merely friends. Salome was obsessed with fitness, and maintained a strict regimen that involved swordplay and dueling. She encouraged Millicent to join her. Millicent dropped a few stones' worth of weight and won it back as muscle. She was never thin, but now her bulk was a little bit more serviceable.

Solome kept on dating boys as was expected of her, and at the end of her seventh year, Salome had accepted an offer of marriage from a man twenty years older than her, Horton Magewell. Solome actually confessed to Millicent that she'd secured this betrothal last summer. However, her mother'd had seven husbands in twice as many years, and Horton was also concerned about their age difference. As a result, Horton insisted that Solome date at least seven boys during her seventh year, so that he might be assured that Solomon's heart was truly his, and she wasn't going to renege on her vows.

Throughout this, the girls continued seeing one another, taking advantage of the peace and quiet that came to Salome's life now that she no longer had to fret over the foolish boys in her own year. Millicent admired Salome's cunning, and Salome admired Millicent's ambitions to rise above marrying a man.

They spent a flirtatious, overwhelmingly joyful summer together, preparing for Salome's wedding. Granted, Salome had dropped hints that when the day of the wedding came, they'd have to end things. Millicent naively assumed that this wasn't going to happen. They loved each other, she knew, and they'd find a way to stay together.

Then, on the day of, Salome gave Millicent a letter, smudged with her perfect pink wedding lipstick, and Millicent wept reading it in the lav while Salome said her vows with Horton, to an audience of hundreds.

Millicent cut her hair short and returned to Hogwarts for her sixth year, broken hearted and rotten on the inside and determined to never fall in love again. Ever.

Then, she made the mistake of giving Hermione Granger more than a passing glance. And she realized she was done for.

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	3. Chapter 3

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

Pansy tended to assign the girls in the dorm to various social roles, given that she was the person of highest social rank amongst the sixth year Slytherin girls. Though her natural leadership skills were prescient, she'd never seemed to know quite what to make of Millicent. At one point in first and second years, she had given Millicent some meaningless tasks such as putting invitations in envelopes and that sort of thing, but nothing important. Millicent had done them as best she could, but Pansy hadn't seemed satisfied, and had stared at Millicent openly while she clumsily went through the tasks. She seemed to be desperately searching for something that Millicent was good at doing socially, and she also seemed to be coming up short.

But one day in early September of Millicent's 6th year, Pansy approached her, asking Millicent to be the erstwhile protector for Flora and Hestia Carrow.

"Why me?" Millicent had asked, running her fingers through her previously-long hair and continuing to be surprised when the ends came sooner than expected.

Pansy was quick, and whipped a hairpin out of her hair, and stabbed it at Millicent's hand, or at least tried to. On her part, Millicent's hand whipped up and grabbed Pansy's wrist, and captured it in a firm, immovable hold. It was a skill she had practiced with Solome a thousand times, at least, in their dueling sessions.

"This is why," Pansy said coolly, staring into Millicent's eyes.

Millicent gazed at her a moment, and then nodded, as if she understood. Then, she let go of Pansy's hand, and Pansy daintily shook her wrist and look at it. "Oh dear, I hope it doesn't bruise," Pansy said sweetly, and then brushed invisible wrinkles out of her school robes and gracefully glided away.

Evidenced by her walk, she'd been having Finishing lessons that summer, that much was clear. Probably from the same instructor Millicent's mother had begged the perpetually-awkward Millicent to accept every summer since her third year.

Shaking her head, Millicent sighed and then realized why Pansy had approached her - and more interestingly, asked Millicent use the skills that she'd been quietly developing with Salome. Solome, for all her silence since the wedding, must have been looking out for Millicent, talking about her to her brother, perhaps. She knew Pansy and Blaise had been an item briefly during one of her fights with Draco.

It made her both angry and touched that Salome had interfered on her behalf. If she'd had the chance to reject such an offer of help, Millicent knew that her pride would have demanded she reject it. So perhaps it was best that Salome had worked in this beautifully Slytherin fashion to ensure that Millicent was not high and dry at the end of the day.

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please leave comments and reviews! Please!


	4. Chapter 4

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave KIND and ENCOURAGING reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

Since they entered school, Flora and Hestia Carrow had been experiencing more than their fair share of bullying from members of the non-Slytherin houses. Perhaps it was because they were so pale and quiet, and when confronted, they would break down crying immediately. More likely, it had something to do with their father, Andreius Carrow, the older and more mature brother to Amycus and Alecto, being the foremost manufacturer of ladies' intimate garments, and their third-year peers were reaching the age where imagination became equally matched with cruelty. (Oh the sweet tender blessings of being a sixth year, Millicent felt). Their inclusion in the Slug Club during their third year did nothing to quell these issues, and Millicent witnessed first-hand some of the truly incomprehensible gimmicks perpetrated against the two fragile twins.

So it was with her usual intrepid nature that Millicent accompanied the young ladies hither and thither around the castle. They were quiet creatures, and odd even for inbred pureblood witches, speaking to each other in their own language that sounded vaguely like French. They were inseparable, but not in the way that Fred and George Weasley were, or even Padma and Parvati Patil. No, Flora and Hestia Carrow seemed literally to wilt when their other sister wasn't in the same room as them. They often walked the halls hand in hand, and seemed to have a deep sense of bonding that Millicent frankly envied. What a beautiful life to have, she felt, where you had a ready-made defense against loneliness.

The girls seemed to accept Millicent's new arranged friendship with them in stride, but never to demonstrate any interest in her. They treated her like a delivery-person, or a waiter, or a cab driver - they would have prolonged conversations in front of her, never acknowledging her. They would periodically ask her to pass the salt, or instruct her to help them avoid a certain person, but otherwise treated her like they would a servant.

This made Millicent's face burn with shame. She had watched Crabbe and Goyle serve as official bodyguards for Draco Malfoy. But they'd literally been chosen from birth to serve that role. The Crabbe and Goyle families had always been servants. The Bulstrodes had never been servants, at least not in recent history. They had their own noble bearing and lineage. Her family was minor nobility, but nobility all the same.

She dared not write home about the recent turn of events. She knew her mother would make some sort of comment like "That's what you get for being so unladylike," and then follow that up with, "If, perhaps, you tried that new diet I told you about…"

It was a depressing state of affairs, and Millicent probably wouldn't have kept with it as long as she did except that after her first few weeks, she received an effusive letter from their father, saying that he was setting up a Gringotts account for her to use as she wished, with the amount of her disbursements increasing every month she continued her work for them. The sum wouldn't have impressed a Malfoy, but Millicent was well aware that her family estate was deeply underwater, and she wouldn't have much, if anything, to pass on to her when her mother passed.

The money was important to her in many ways. It represented the possibility of freedom. The possibility of never needing to marry. And, indeed, the possibility of living exactly the way she wanted.

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	5. Chapter 5

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave KIND and ENCOURAGING reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

This led to Millicent accompanying the Carrow girls to the Slug Club Christmas party. She communicated to all who saw them that she was their protector, walking proudly, her shoulders thrown back and her eyes glistening with purpose.

Not that she felt it. She had a book in her pocket, and was looking forward to finding a dark corner where she could keep an eye on the girls but also keep at her book. (She had pockets because she had requested some of Crabbe's old hand-me-downs. It meant that the Muggleborns would whisper among themselves, just loud enough for her to hear, that she was "Bulstrode the Bulldyke." She kind of liked it.)

Also, because the holiday season was catching up to her, and without Solome to exercise with every day, some of her belly had come back, and she wasn't feeling particularly attractive or effective. She still exercised more than many of the Quidditch players, despite her lack of interest in the sport, but she wasn't doing nearly as much aerobics as she used to. Now she preferred strength work, since she could read while she was doing it.

Feeling excited to stuff herself with the rich treats, and since she was technically the girls' guest, she settled down in the corner and got herself a heaping plateful. Frog's legs - she hadn't had them since she was a young child, and her father was still alive and frequently showered the family with extravagant meals. Scallops wrapped in bacon melted in her mouth, and she could have swallowed the whole serving plate if she wasn't careful - her constitution was good, but her impulse control was not.

Fine Italian meats sliced as thin as fairy's wings landed on her tongue with decadent pleasure. Bruschetta made with olive, garlic, and portobello mushroom. Several varieties of crystallized pineapple, some flavored with passion fruit, others with ginger, and others with mango. Tea cakes made with milky untoasted bread, of perfect consistency through and through, with an impeccable dirigible jam and devonshire cream. Roasted duck, coated in a spicy apricot spread that clung to the tongue in heavenly delight. And so many strange kinds of fruit wines and meads, ranging from more countries than Millicent knew existed.

It was a motley arrangement overall, but the quality of each item was sensational, and there was a story behind each. Slughorn had included little cards next to each dish, which she dutifully picked up and studied as she stuffed her face.

She was loading up on the sweets and fats now, because she knew once she got home, her mother would guarantee that all their meals consisted of boiled vegetables and lean meat and then feign ignorance.

Despite her efforts to gorge herself, she kept her eye on the twins as they moved around the room. They eerily floated from one group of people to another, never separating for a moment, holding hands tightly, never engaging too long. They lingered a little longer with Luna Lovegood, and the three of them seemed to strangely understand each other. They all retreated to a dark corner of the tentlike room and sat, their pale skin glowing translucently in the dimness.

Then, Millicent noticed someone she'd never seen before. Wearing a long crimson flowing dress, with pronounced ruffles at the hem, the girl was beautiful. She had dark skin and skillfully-tamed tresses that were wrestled into an intensive updo. Her body, as Millicent admired it from behind, was on the thicker and flatter side, but her dress was well-tailored to it, creating the illusion of an hourglass figure out of her apple-shape. Her buttocks were a work of art all on their own, jiggling ever so slightly with every motion, visible even under the disguising flare of her skirt. The dress would have fit better if the girl lost a few pounds, but Millicent wasn't complaining.

Drinking in the girl, her fascinated eyes drifted from the girl's luscious bottom to her soft brown shoulders, with just a bit too much meat on them. The color of her skin reminded Millicent of her beautiful Solome, though this girl was significantly lighter. High yellow? Was that term appropriate? They'd studied racism in Muggle studies, but she hadn't precisely understood the point of it. Apparently just like wizards hated Mudbloods, Muggles hated people with darker skin. This seemed arbitrary and silly to Millicent, who didn't see the point of hating someone based on what they looked like - blood purity couldn't be told by how one looked, and there were pureblood families of diverse hues. The Zabinis being prime examples.

Oh, Solome.

Thinking of her lost love made her depression rage, and there was only one way that Millicent knew how to make herself feel better (at least that was publically appropriate): she ate.

Millicent got up and filled her plate again, watching closely as the girl turned to talk to Cormac McLaggen, who was looking uncommonly excited, his eyes bright and focused on the girl.

It was only then that Millicent saw the girl's face - and recognized her.

Hermione Granger?

Millicent nearly choked on the tiny spanakopita she'd popped into her mouth at that precise second. She coughed it out, all over the front of her nice dark green button-down, and she cursed under her breath at the disgusting flecks of partially-chewed pastry that splattered across her breasts.

"Let me get that for you," someone said at her elbow, and Millicent saw Flora and Hestia. Flora raised her wand and, cringing with revulsion, cast a scourgify. The mess was sufficient that one spell wasn't enough, and without a word, as though they had choreographed it, Hestia's birdlike hands grasped either shoulder of Millicent's shirt and pulled it taut, and Flora did the spell again with greater success.

"Thanks," Millicent said, surprised that the girls had bothered to help her.

The twins shrugged in nonchalant unison, and floated away, but not before Hestia whispered to her sister, "She eats so much."

It was strange to be acknowledged in such a way by the twins. At once, Millicent's mood plummeted even further. Was she going to get fired for this? She hoped not. It would be just like her to get fired for the simple fact that she was a lard arse.

Loathsomely, she looked around for Hermione Granger. The awkward girl from potions class was cornered by McLaggen even more completely than before - she was standing underneath the mistletoe, by the vast array of wines, and he had put his hand on her shoulder and was trying to draw her close. What a bore.

Millicent felt the jealousy surge through her in a very visceral way as she watched them. Hermione's hand was twisting at her hair, coy and nervous and awkward. Cormac was even worse, putting his arm over her shoulder, an intense look in his eyes. Millicent's eyes shot daggers at him when his gaze drifted in her direction. It didn't seem like either of them noticed, though.

What a strange turn of events it was, Millicent thought, to be attracted to a mudblood. Certainly this would go away if she thought very hard and very carefully about something else.

She closed her eyes, and tried to think about Professor Snape. She'd noticed him when she came in, and he looked dark and miserable as per usual. She tried to focus on her first and only detention with him, last year, where his sinewy hands had worked alongside her own pudgy ones, chopping up elk's bladders. She'd fantasized successfully about those hands many times since, but for some reason it wasn't working today. Her brain went through the usual channels of imagination, but she didn't have the same usual overpowering response in her darker regions.

Instead, her mind passed over the hundreds of times she'd seethed at Hermione Granger in class. All at once, she realized she'd been paying closer attention to the other girl than she had given herself credit for.

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	6. Chapter 6

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave KIND and ENCOURAGING reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

For example, Millicent had always been a bit tickled by the fact that all of Slytherin was genuinely terrified of Hermione Granger. Millicent understood that the girl represented a challenge to everything that many Slytherins claimed to believe. For those who believed that purebloods were better and stronger magically, Hermione countered this adeptly just by existing and being at the top of every class she was in (other than divination). Therefore, some (less intelligent) Slytherins would say that everything she did, no matter how impressive, wasn't as good as the past and present pureblooded wizards and witches. And some of them even tried their best to demonstrate how their own pureblooded or halfblooded skills were superior, usually to their chagrin.

The darker, more intellectually skilled members of Slytherin didn't respond by trying to outbest her, for they implicitly acknowledged that this wasn't possible. Most of the time, they simply undermined her for other traits. She was too foolish, unwilling to compromise with the well-established families in order to develop something truly great. She was intellectually gifted but without a capacity for deeper, more advanced rational thought, because she didn't question authority to a sufficient degree. Or, sometimes, she was too arrogant, because she questioned the status quo without bothering to really delve deep into the culture and experiences of the wizarding people.

The worst thing they said, (or best, depending on your view), was that she was a talented witch, but too emotionally unbalanced to really be the tour-de-force everyone else expected her to be. She wasn't able to control her emotions, and was inclined to fly off the handle, and because of this, her misguided passions would inevitably undo any good she might have been able to do in the world. She cared too much about being Good Enough, and thereby entirely missed the point of being a witch.

How could they expect anything else of a Muggleborn, however? She wasn't raised in the wizarding world. She was a stranger in a foreign world, but told by people like Dumbledore that she was the same as anyone who had been born a witch or wizard. Therefore, she felt like she was entitled to appropriate wizarding culture and adapt it to her own uses, picking and choosing the parts that she liked - all without a deeper knowledge of what it meant to be a member of the magical world.

In short: she didn't belong, had never belonged, and would never belong, because she was a Muggleborn, and moreover she shouldn't expect to belong, because it wasn't her culture. Her success was, indeed, a symptom of how poorly she fit into the culture. If she truly belonged, she wouldn't have to try so hard to prove she fit in. And any promise she showed now also coincided with her poor judgment, and she'd either burn out and leave the world, or she'd wreck it completely.

People had been saying these kinds of things about Muggleborns for decades, but these views really coalesced into something significant and real when it came to Hermione Granger. She was an incredibly visible symbol of the brilliance that a Muggleborn could display, and because of this symbolic status she had, her flaws eclipsed her achievements all the more greatly.

But as she looked at the girl, who was practically devastated to be at the Slug Club Christmas Party with Cormac McLaggen, MIllicent realized that she had never been afraid of Hermione Granger. Millicent, heretofore, was a member of the camp that looked at Hermione with overwhelming pity. As she thought about it, Millicent saw that the girl worked harder than any Hufflepuff, and that was how the girl managed to achieve her greatness. It couldn't be denied: the girl had serious grit. And if the girl's grit was sourced in ambition, Millicent would have respected Hermione a great deal. But Granger had revealed more than once that it wasn't for the sake of greatness, but something else - an overwhelming fear of failure. And this fear was pathetic.

Slytherins, Millicent understood, didn't believe they'd fail. They merely expected to succeed at their plans to a greater or lesser degree. There were many paths to achieve victory, and Slytherins understood that the world was colored in hues of grey that could be manipulated based on one's advantages.

And so when Millicent looked at Hermione, she didn't see someone who succeeded beyond all expectations against adversity. Instead, she saw someone who was overcompensating for a deep-rooted anxiety about being Not Good Enough. This was fundamentally a very Gryffindor problem. Slytherins operated from the premise of moral relativity, whereas Gryffindors were obsessed with morality as existing in absolute terms.

There were more important things in life than grades and Being Good Enough, Millicent believed. Millicent prided herself on being balanced in her priorities - like working to find the meaning of one's life, seeking esteem and respect among one's colleagues, and maintaining proficiency in a few diverse skills that would be useful long-term.

Not that Millicent felt like this was enough to satisfy her. She was just beginning to figure out what she might want after her time at Hogwarts, and just beginning to figure out where her major weaknesses were. But she felt like Hermione's flaws were truly obvious.

Obvious, perhaps, in ways that were sweet, and almost adorable.

Indeed, the more she thought about Hermione Granger, the more Millicent realized that the girl could actually learn a thing or two from her, even though the girl outclassed her in every single academic subject.

This made Millicent feel somewhat smug, and she opened her eyes again, her lips twisted into a smirk. She took a satisfied breath, and gazed across the room, feeling more content with her unexpected font of desire for the Muggleborn.

If Hermione Granger was someone to be reckoned with on account of her academic skills, what would it be like if she had someone to help her figure out the proper ways to navigate wizarding society and culture?

Someone, indeed, like MIllicent?

* * *

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	7. Chapter 7

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave KIND and ENCOURAGING reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

Millicent ushered the thought deeper into her mind. It'd never work. The Gryffindor was probably satisfied with her silly affair with the ridiculous McLaggen, and out of a desire to fit in, she'd probably end up marrying the bloke on account of the simple fact that he wanted her. Not that he was good enough for her, by a long shot.

Settling with the knowledge that she'd have to content herself with merely admiring the girl from afar, Millicent sat back in the comfortable chair and cleaned her plate. Aside from her periodic, automatic glances at the twins, who were safely stowed away sharing a butterbeer in a dark corner, she focused her entire attention on the girl. Pleased to have a covert vantage point, she sat in quiet contemplation of Hermione Granger's voluptuous assets long after she planned to get up and fill her plate again.

And then, as Millicent watched quietly, Hermione's eyes cast a glance over the room, as if she sensed someone was observing her. Her wide brown eyes landed on Millicent finally, and she looked as scared as if she were a mouse under observation by a snake.

Knowing this would probably be the end of her pleasurable viewing, Millicent shot back a toothy grin. Might as well enjoy it while it lasted. It was nice to see a Gryffindor feel uncomfortable. She refused to break eye contact first, and she continued to stare steadily at Hermione. Assured that she had the girl's attention, Millicent's hand trailed up the front of her shirt, loosened her masculine tie, and subtly undid the topmost buttons of her shirt, revealing her substantial cleavage.

Hermione's eyes went wide, and with a hint of a blush, she turned back to McLaggen. Unsubtle buffoon that he was, McLaggen didn't seem to notice anything amiss, and went on bombarding her with sweet nothings, gesticulating grandly at empty space for emphasis.

Millicent was worried that Hermione was going to do something at that point - move the couple away out of eyeshot, tell Cormac what was happening and have him come confront her, or even just ignore her.

She was pleasantly surprised by the results that followed. At first, it looked like Hermione was successfully opting for the third circumstance - ignoring Millicent - but as Millicent continued to keep her attention directed at the Muggleborn witch, she noticed Hermione stealing glances in her direction. Each time, Millicent gazed back beatifically, raising one of her eyebrows in an invitation.

She never wavered, and Hermione's glances became more curious, intrigued, and frequent. Until finally, Hermione and her were staring at each other every few seconds.

Hermione's dark face was turning a little rosy at the cheeks as she flushed. She seemed to be getting a little bit too hot, and she took a trembling sip from her aged oak mead.

She seemed to meditate upon it, taking deep heaving breaths, focusing intently on her drink. Millicent admired how the other girl was so frazzled, how her dark hair seemed already to be curling back into its usual kinky state, and how her dress seemed to be growing tighter on the other girl's body, gluing more closely to the girl's skin with sweat.

Then, Millicent won the ultimate prize - Hermione's own hand reached up to touch her own throat, and unbuttoned one, two, three of her high collar buttons, until her own cleavage was exposed.

Her large brown eyes glanced to the side, and then she made fearless eye contact with Millicent, a small smirk of her own growing on her face.

It was Millicent's turn to blush furiously, and she found herself outright grinning, all superior feelings evaporated. She realized her plan had worked - strangely, and against all expectations. Hermione Granger had noticed her, and acknowledged her.

She, in turn, raised her bottle of mead (she didn't bother with such things as glasses when she'd just have to refill them over and over), and, feeling a little foolish but unable to stop herself, she toasted Hermione.

Hermione nodded, raised her glass ever so slightly, and inclined her head in respect, staring straight at Millicent.

It took Millicent a moment to realize that Hermione had, indeed, toasted her back. When she did realize it, Millicent felt like she'd won the fucking moon. Her body went awash with feelings - electricity, coiled energy inside her, a seductive spark of enthusiasm, a ravenous hunger for something that she'd never truly satisfied. Her organs ached with lust, with desire, with passion. Something stirred within her she'd never felt before - it was overwhelming.

There was something in Hermione's big brown eyes that suggested that maybe, she too shared a little bit of this sensation. There was something wise in the way she looked at Millicent, and also something a little bit sad, as if she knew they could never act on these feelings.

That sadness cut Millicent to the core, but at once ignited her fervor all the more. Somehow she felt like she was walking into a trap, but she couldn't be arsed to care. Hermione Granger - the woman heralded as the most brilliant witch of her age - was interested in her.

In those moments, Millicent already knew she would slither through fire just for the chance to kiss Hermione's feet, and happily pay for the privilege.

She had no idea what to do with these feelings, and neither, it seemed, did Hermione, who finally took a deep breath and tried to focus on her non-conversation with Cormac. But Millicent could tell, something had changed. And she - Millicent - had been the cause of it. She felt a surge of pride swell in her breast.

All the while, McLaggen was oblivious as hell, distracted as all get out by Hermione's freshness, probably taking credit for it himself.

But Hermione and Millicent knew better, as they gazed into each others' eyes from across the room for what seemed like the rest of the evening. Hermione eventually managed to escape McLaggen, but she didn't join Millicent, instead heading towards her friend, Harry Potter.

Millicent had no idea what was going to happen, but she knew one thing for sure: she really wanted that girl.

* * *

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	8. Chapter 8

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave KIND and ENCOURAGING reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

At first, nothing happened. Neither Hermione nor Millicent did anything to alleviate the situation for several weeks. The holidays happened, and then there was the new semester, and then there was the inevitable blush of post-holiday depression that settled upon the school.

Winter was heavy and damp that year, and very cold.

Millicent began laying plans, however. She wasn't sure exactly what she wanted to do, but she knew she wanted to get Hermione's attention. So she began to make subtle changes in how she went about her life. Whereas in the past year, she had done most of her reading in her bedroom, spread out flat on her belly across the bed, Millicent decided a change was in order.

She knew Hermione was an aficionado of the library, and so she began to try out new reading locations there - ones that were well out of view of the librarian's desk, so as not to accidentally retrigger those sad memories of Irma Pince. She soon found the squashiest, most secluded chair out of eyeshot of the librarian's desk, and began to camp out there.

It just so happened to be within a book's throw of Hermione's own favorite corner, which housed a table and a few uncomfortable chairs where Harry and Ron sometimes joined her.

While Hermione never approached her, and Millicent never approached Hermione, they would sometimes see each other as Hermione wandered the stacks, usually with jumble of books in her arms. They did their best not to notice each other.

Millicent also began to slowly, subtly step up her game in potions class. She found herself standing abashedly outside Slughorn's door with a box of crystallized pineapple, and he received her in joyfully. She manufactured thoughtful questions, and through her cunning and guile, she managed to wheedle rare tutoring sessions from her professor. In his overwhelming laziness, he found himself completely unable to refuse her offer of cleaning up after classes every day, with limited magic, in exchange for some valuable one-on-one time with him.

She never was able to compare to Harry Potter's bewildering brilliance in the class, but with work, she more than held her own.

It came as a point of pride to her when she received her first glare from Hermione's direction at the end of class one day.

Millicent grimaced in envy when Hermione presented, at the end of class, a perfect aqualimus potion, a single drop of which could cleanse a pond of all unnatural pollutants unsafe for drinking. The potion was supposed to be dark and murky, and Millicent saw that Hermione's was darker than most, a dusky brown ochre color. Millicent thought it looked like the color of shit, and was obscenely jealous. Millicent was good enough at potions to recognize when she was bettered, and to resent it.

But as she looked down at her own potion, which she was about ten minutes behind on because she'd been more careful (she hoped) in her preparation process, she had a realization. Based on something the professor had told her about oxidization, she surmised that she could accelerate, and potentially heighten the effectiveness of the process in her own cauldron. With a few extra stirs slightly earlier in the brewing process, and covering the cauldron with a heavy crock cover for a precisely timed few minutes, soon she had finished as well. The color of her potion was nearly black, and it was much more thick in consistency, almost like tar.

She gave up the project as ruined, but went ahead and stoppered it anyway. What else was there to do?

As she began cleaning up her cauldron, she saw Harry Potter bring his potion up to the front of the class. For some reason this year, the blood traitor had risen to preeminence as the premiere potioneer of their year, but Millicent knew he must be cheating somehow. He'd always been rubbish at potions, and all of a sudden he was better than Hermione? Damned if she could figure it out, but she didn't even give him a second thought. He wasn't worth her time angsting over. But Hermione? She definitely was worth it. Hermione actually was the head of the class in terms of practical skills and excellence, and whatever Potter was doing didn't even matter.

Except that his potion was, based on the way it slopped around in the bottle he put on the desk, was almost as black and viscous as her own. Almost.

She nearly dropped the cauldron on her foot to see it. Had her potion actually been better than Potter's? Or was hers just a touch overdone?

She then felt eyes boring into the back of her head, and she turned her head to see Hermione Granger staring straight at her, a murderous glare in the other girl's eyes.

Once the last classmate's bottle was placed on his desk, Professor Slughorn was unstoppering the bottles that had landed in front of him. He paused and looked quite pleased to see Potter's potion, and then his eyes widened to see the one with Millicent's name on it. He opened them both and sniffed them, shifted them around in his hand.

"I must say," he said, his voice booming over the class as everyone packed up, since he wasn't going to give final grades until tomorrow, "Miss Bulstrode. This is a nice surprise. What a stroke of genius to implement the oxidizing effects from the grownburt potion we studied last week to this potion. It looks like Mr. Potter also had the same idea, and well done, m'boy... but your execution, Miss Bulstrode, is simply superb."

Millicent found herself stammering a thank-you, and blushing just a little bit while she examined her shoes. She hated to be the center of attention, particularly in potions.

Then, she realized that someone was standing close by her.

"What. Did. You. Do?" came a tense voice, one of resignation and surrender.

Millicent did her best to look confident. Based on her reflection in the chrome cauldron on her desk, she only managed to successfully appear smarmy. "Why, Granger," she said cooly, thrusting her hands in her pockets and hoping her button-down shirt was going to choose this particular moment to pop open in an unruly fashion. "Are you talking about my potion?"

"No," Hermione said, flatly, and her face was serious.

Millicent was puzzled, and showed it. She knew she didn't have the best of faces for hiding her secrets.

Hermione clapped a hand over her face. "No, of course I'm talking about your potion. What else would I be talking about?"

"There's no need to get snappy, Granger," Millicent heard herself saying, and her heart died a little bit as soon as the words came out of her mouth. She tried to amend, "We're all friends here."

"Yeah. Sure. Friends," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "Just tell me what you did, if you wouldn't mind? Or if you won't, fine, but just tell me if you're at least going to tell me."

"I'm happy to," Millicent said. And there it was - the tone of sincerity she'd been trying to get at this whole conversation. She pushed her glasses back further on her nose and thoughtfully touched her soft double-chin. "I just noticed we were using the same preparation process as in the grumpthwile and the grownburt potions. I don't know, it just came to me at the precise right moment, I guess, and I used the crock cover for seventeen seconds three times, just like the grumpthwile potion, and stirred intermittently. My thought was to do something similar as what we did with the grownburt potion modification we learned last week. I'm just glad it didn't end in an explosion," she confessed, and she realized she needed to check herself, for she was blathering.

Hermione's face looked a little less harsh, though. Perhaps blathering was the way to the Gryffindor heart? Millicent was a little surprised, since she thought that was more a Hufflepuff thing, to appreciate vulnerability, but perhaps Gryffindors were like that as well.

"I see," she said, and she provided a small smile in return for the information. "That was clever. Good work."

"Thanks," Millicent said, and there was a sickening earnestness in her voice that made her want to hide her face from her fellow house members. "Say, Granger."

Oh no. Hermione actually stopped from turning away, and she looked straight into Millicent's eyes. "What?" she asked, a little crossly.

"Would you… consider coming with me this weekend to Hogsmeade?" Millicent asked, and she immediately realized that she was hungry, and making poor decisions because it was just before lunch, and oh hell had she just asked Hermione Granger, Mudblood Extraordinaire, out on a date?

A date?

Would she ever be able to live this down, if she survived the hexes that were bound to come her way now from her house members?

Millicent glanced around, and was happy to see that only Hermione, Potter, and Slughorn remained in the classroom at this point. At least her shame was going to only be noted by a small number. She could, in fact, kill them all if needed to hide her shame, ha ha. (She was only half joking.)

However, a Slytherin couldn't backtrack. She'd made herself even more vulnerable. And Millicent was kicking herself. What a fool she was.

Hermione was squinting very hard at Millicent, as if expecting this to be some kind of trap. Millicent felt sweat accumulating on her brow. Hungry, and sweaty. Wow, what a hog she was. Who'd ever want to go out with someone like her?

Then, very slowly, Hermione said, "No Madam Puddifoot's."

"Oh," Millicent said, with a deep breath of relief. "No. Of course not. What do you take me for?"

Of course not. What rot. Millicent had, in all truth, not thought far enough ahead to consider where she might take Hermione on the next Hogsmeade trip.

Hermione remained very quiet for several more minutes. Then, her next words made Millicent very glad that Potter was standing at the door, too far to hear, and that Slughorn had waddled into his office to put away the potions, also too far to hear.

Hermione stepped forward a little bit, and murmured with low tones, "I take you for a lesbian."

Millicent swallowed firmly. She'd heard the word before, of course, and even identified with it, in her mind. But no one had ever outright called her that.

"I… I'm not a lesbian," she denied, her voice hot but nervous. "At best, I'm… I don't know... I mean, I do fancy Snape," she explained helplessly.

Oh dear. She was certainly putting on a bad show of being better than Hermione. For some reason, Millicent was feeling tongue-tied. She had no idea how Hermione was able to make her carefully-constructed facade fall away like a pile of loose parchment caught in the wind.

Her mind extrapolated to a future that didn't exist yet, that probably would never exist. Would she ever win against Hermione Granger, at anything?

She doubted it. And she also knew that for Hermione Granger, she'd be willing to lose. Every time.

"So," Hermione said, and she was smiling quietly, like a Renaissance painting. "You're not a lesbian. So, this isn't a date?"

"I mean," Millicent said, and she felt her stomach flip-flop. How dare her brain have contrived this idea immediately before lunch? What a cruel mind she had. "Irrespective… if you'd like, it could be a date."

Hermione seemed mostly amused at the suggestion, then, with a sigh and a smile, she said, "Sure. Let's call it a date. Meet me at Honeyduke's. I'll be there around ten on Saturday."

With that, all Millicent could do was nod. Millicent's eyes grew wide as she watched Hermione saunter away, her delightful apple bottom waggling seductively.

Oh Merlin, Millicent thought, sinking down into the nearest desk with a thwump, I seem to have a date with Hermione Granger.

And somehow, she couldn't get the ridiculously goofy smile off her face through the rest of the day. Or the next.

* * *

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	9. Chapter 9

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave KIND and ENCOURAGING reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

The morning of Saturday was full of bittersweet joy. Millicent had stolen one of her roommate's old hair bows, and charmed it to sit at her neck instead. It shone in vivid rainbow colors, a very expensive and high-quality ribbon indeed. Millicent felt like she had to display some sort of patriotism. If she was coming… out… as a queer (a queer? was that the right word? she had no idea and thinking about it too hard made her want to sink into a puddle of goo) she might as well make a whole-hog effort at it.

Speaking of a whole hog effort… she'd been unable to stop eating since asking Hermione out on their date, and she had gained about half a stone in the week. The extra weight made her feel a trifle off-balance, and it had settled mostly in her belly. At least that was a refreshing change from where it usually landed, her back-breaking breasts.

Of course this impacted her self-esteem frightfully, and while she was wearing her favorite jumper and brushed every cat hair off her robes, had her roommate trim her short hair, and otherwise made herself quite presentable, the feeling of being less than svelte made her feel insecure.

Honeyduke's was open at 9, and Millicent was there at that precise moment. As she followed Professor Sinistra from the castle to the village, Millicent breathed in deeply the cold fresh January air. This was the first Hogsmeade trip since before Christmas, and there was leftover Christmas money burning a hole in peoples' pockets, Millicent's included.

She enjoyed the smell of the air, which was sweet and clean. The sun was bright and warm, and as it brushed against the limbs of the bare trees, it cast bleak shadows across the ground. It had snowed the night before, and there were deep banks on either side of the path, which had been cleared for the day's journey. As the fifty or so students who'd gotten up early for the first trip to the village marched, their voices chipper and cheerful as they crunched along in their boots, Millicent watched as startled birds took off from the branches, sending slushy piles of snow to the ground from the trees.

She'd gotten up early because Hermione had said they were meeting at Honeyduke's, and candy was serious business for her. Millicent didn't intend to purchase her usual vast assortment in front of Hermione, in front of whom she fully intended to demonstrate restraint.

Imagine her surprise and frustration when, after purchasing and sipping a hot chocolate from a small stand in the square, she saw Hermione sitting on the stoop of the candy store, a book in her gloved hands as she waited for the proprietor to open the door.

"Ah, good morning," Millicent said, trying her best to really act the part. "Seems you couldn't be more excited to see me, eh?"

Hermione cast an appraising look at Millicent, and nodded. "About right," she said, and her smile was cautious, but warm. "Is that hot chocolate?" she asked.

"Yes," Millicent said, and thrust the cup at Hermione. "Have some if you like."

"Don't mind if I do," Hermione said, and took the heavy mug, and she sipped it. "It's really good," she murmured after a generous swallow or two. There was a bit of whipped cream on her upper lip.

"You've, erm," Millicent began, and reached up to wipe away the cream.

Hermione, in the same moment, raised her own sleeve to wipe it away. Their hands bumped awkwardly.

"Oh, sorry," they both said, and then both laughed nervously.

"What are you reading?" Millicent asked, trying to deflate the tension.

"Nothing special," Hermione said, and MIllicent knew immediately this was a lie. Hermione Granger didn't read 'nothing special,' she was fascinated by everything and anything.

Millicent, in response, gestured for Hermione to raise the book so she could see the cover.

Fortifying herself with another sip of the hot chocolate, Hermione flipped the book closed. "Potions and Oxidation: Practice and Applications," she read aloud the title, and then took another sip of the hot chocolate. Then she proffered the cup back to Millicent. "Thank you for sharing, that was sweet of you."

"Eh," Millicent said, and hazarded, "Glad you like it."

She proceeded to put her lips on the rim of the cup, exactly where she guessed Hermione had put them.

It gave her a rush of pleasure to notice that, just like her, Hermione didn't wear makeup - no lip gloss or lipstick at all. How beautifully uncommon. It made Millicent want to press her lips to Hermione's just to taste and see what it was like to kiss her.

Yes, well, that sort of experiment wasn't exactly uncalled for during a date. Just not quite yet. Millicent knew better than to push her luck.

As it happened, as she threw back the final dregs of the hot chocolate, the thick whipped cream that hadn't melted slipping down the sides into her waiting cavernous mouth, the door jangled. "It's a bit early, but it's cold outside, girls," said the proprietress, a short fat dimpled woman with bright pink hair. "Do come in. I won't be having you catch your death of colds on my doorstep."

The proprietress opened the door, and motioned for them to enter.

"Erm," Millicent said, and didn't have a chance to answer as Hermione stood up, brushed a bit of snow off her well-rounded arse, and slipped in the door gently opened for them.

Millicent had no sufficient response in time, so she followed Hermione into the candy store.

* * *

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	10. Chapter 10

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave KIND and ENCOURAGING reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

The shop was the same as usual in all the elementary respects, but for some reason, Millicent saw there was something different about it. The harsh winter sunlight shone in the lattice pane window, lighting up the jars of sparkling candies. The aroma of gingerbread pervaded the place, and Millicent wished (unreasonably) that she had eaten more at breakfast. It felt like she hadn't eaten anything.

Hermione went straight up to the counter, her eyes wide and awake. "I'll have seven sticks of black licorice," she said promptly, as if reading a grocery list, "A box of chocolate frogs, and a half pound of raspberry cordials."

Millicent appreciated her choices, but refused to buy anything more than a knut's worth of hard licorice candy out of a desire to appear abstinent.

Hermione quirked an eyebrow, but otherwise didn't remark, and soon they were back outside in the cold of winter.

"It is a beautiful day," Hermione mused as they trudged along in the snow. "Where to, now?"

Millicent, at least, had a good answer for this. "Do you like cats?" she asked, finding herself smiling faintly.

Hermione's eyes lit up and widened. She looked alarmed, and slowly she confessed, "I have a kneazle. Cats, in my limited experience, tend to make me sneeze."

Millicent frowned. She could see Hermione was responding to some subtext that Millicent couldn't decipher.

At last she gave up on trying to figure it out. "Does this mean yes or no cats?"

"Let's try and see," Hermione said, adding, "my last experience with a cat was rather unusual."

Millicent nodded, and with a grand gesture she motioned at a grimy looking alleyway.

"There?" Hermione asked, casting a skeptical glance back at Millicent.

"Yeah," Millicent said, and added, "if you're concerned, I'll gladly go ahead of you."

Hermione glanced down the alley again, turned her head to Millicent, and furrowed her brow. "No need," she said, rolling her eyes. Then she offered her arm. "I'm certainly not scared of a few shadows. Not after everything I've seen. We go along together."

Millicent outright blushed, but fortunately the cold had already pinkened her cheeks. "Certainly," she said with her best imitation of a Malfoy's courtly manners, and took Hermione's arm in a manner she hoped was fashionable.

The alley really wasn't that scary once you started down it. There was a fabric shop, with enormous bolts of cloth blocking the windows, and the back door of a cobbler's shop, and other less flashy stores than those that occupied the main plaza of Hogsmeade. These were the practical shops, the places more frequented by locals and teachers than by students.

Unless these were students on a mission, like they were.

They walked past the shop they were looking for before they saw it, unobtrusive and piquant in the morning light. A crowd of pigeons plucked their beaks into the snow out in front, eating the crumbs tossed there from someone's breakfast. A frigid bench sat under the awning, but someone had been sitting on it, for it was wiped clean and dry. Now, a cat was there, looking pensively at the birds, as if choosing who would be its supper.

Hermione hesitantly patted the cat, scratching knowledgeably behind its ears, and it responded with purrs of pleasure. She looked puzzled at this segment of their adventure, but temperate. Millicent was glad the windows were so fogged up with the cold. It meant the surprise was all the better once they opened the stiff, scarce-used door at the front of the shop.

There was no bell or chimes to alert the proprietor of their incoming visitors. But there was a pervasive musty smell to alert the visitors that the real proprietors of the place were, despite appearances, the resident felines. Serving as their human counterpart, an angular, bespectacled man with high cheekbones and a stack of mufflers up to his ears sat in an easy chair directly facing the front door. He looked up, fairly startled, but then this settled back into a glare, and he pulled the comforter up higher onto his lap. The old ginger tabby that was enjoying his company, snuggled between his spindly thigh and the arm of the chair, merely yawned and didn't even open its eyes.

He and Millicent had never exchanged a word, but he recognized her from her previous happy hours she had spent here, and he was unconcerned to see her where he might have reacted with alarm at another student. With a brisk shake of his head, dismissing the girls, he turned the page of his book and sipped at the steaming mug of tea in his hand.

Hermione wasn't paying any attention to him, however. Her eyes were wide and she looked as if she were about to faint.

"How have I never heard of this place?" she murmured bewilderedly.

Millicent immediately clapped a hand over Hermione's mouth. The lips were sweetly wet, and the girl's chin had a little pimple on it that Millicent hadn't noticed until she felt it.

"Sorry," mouthed Millicent, and withdrew her hand. Hermione's eyes were glinting with a mature amusement that made Millicent want to be twenty years older and a thousand books wiser. Trying to keep up her appearance of confidence, she put her finger to her lips in the universal sign for quiet, and Hermione didn't need to be told twice. This was a quiet place, and a secret place, and if it was to remain that way, they'd have to abide by the rules.

A cat began to twine itself around her ankles, and Millicent sighed in contentment. This was one of her favorite places.

Millicent followed Hermione around for a few minutes as the girl was settling herself in for a nice long morning. Hermione seemed overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of volumes that weren't available in the Hogwarts Library. Millicent understood why - the tomes were of diverse quality, some costing thousands of galleons, others cheap Muggle pulp fiction. But all of them were neatly sorted and itemized, and all of them were available for a price.

The door opened behind them, and the girls whipped around to see who it might be. Professor Snape was there, looking oddly relaxed. He glanced around the shop, and made brief eye contact with Millicent. He nodded at her, and she returned the nod. This was the third time they'd encountered each other here, and the first two times, it had reignited her crush to an unquenchable level.

And predictably, this third time, Millicent's heart began to beat in that old, familiar crush rhythm. Alas, she thought. She'd been hoping that her newfound affection for Hermione was going to snap her out of her infatuation with Snape. No such luck.

Millicent cast a glance at Hermione, who had finally settled on a choice of book, and was determinedly skimming the table of contents. She shifted slightly on her feet, back and forth, as she seemed unable to be still in her excitement.

Caught between two interesting situations, Millicent opted to finish enjoying the one most likely to end soonest.

The angular, bespectacled man at the front door stuck his arm out to Snape, offering a book wrapped in brown paper. Snape looked at the receipt on the front, and gave the man some coinage, silently placing it in the man's palm. Then he was gone, his robes billowing behind him as the door closed.

Millicent's eyes went back to Hermione. In the quiet of her lost attention, she hadn't noticed Hermione turn down the book and begin staring curiously at Millicent.

Millicent felt her cheeks flush. There was no cold to hide it, now. "What?" she mouthed saucily, jamming her fingers into the bookcase to draw out a mystery novel in one of her favorite series.

Hermione didn't have any response fit to whisper, but the smirk on her face was a knowing one. It pissed Millicent off.

Shaking her head, Millicent motioned towards the back of the bookstore. Hermione followed, and soon they found themselves a corner with some immensely comfortable armchairs, where they settled down together, next to one another, in front of a roaring (but silent) fire where a calico tabby monopolized the hearth.

* * *

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	11. Chapter 11

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave KIND and ENCOURAGING reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

Over the course of the morning, their armchairs had inched closer and closer to each others' until, by lunchtime, the girls were sitting on a loveseat, their bodies closely packed together. Magic chairs. They were specially charmed to make their guests maximally comfortable.

Millicent didn't notice it until she realized Hermione's feet were tangled amongst her own. The contrast of Hermione's cozy red knee-high wool stockings wasn't unpleasant against Millicent's own masculine cashmere green trouser socks.

Hermione's luscious arse was also in an incredibly intimate position, the left cheek pressed tightly against Millicent's thigh as Hermione leaned left against the arm of the chair, her book extended out in front of her as she angled perpendicular to Millicent, at a 45-degree angle to the couch.

The position was too comfortable to disturb. Also, too sexy. Millicent's face was incredibly red as she realized that Hermione's skirt, while long and practical, was riding up along her right thigh, revealing just a glimpse of her sensible white panties resting on her creamy dark skin.

Millicent closed her eyes and tried not to think too hard about sticking her fingers up those panties, removing them, and putting her lips against Hermione's clit. Would it taste like Salome's? Or more like Ginny Weasley's?

The more she tried to clear her mind of her lewd thoughts, the less success she had. Ah well, it wasn't as if she was trying *that* hard.

The blissful scene was only disturbed by Millicent's damn stomach rumbling. She nearly jumped out of her own skin at hearing it.

"Dammit," she said. Her voice was low, but it was enough for the bookcase (or someone behind it?) to shhh her violently.

Hermione blinked and laid down her book with a sigh.

Millicent, in her chagrin, didn't know what to do. She actually was quite hungry, and was on the verge of becoming quite cranky if she didn't get something in her, immediately.

Hermione, for her reluctance, seemed to understand. She arched her back and yawned, as if she'd taken on the form of the cats that surrounded them, and she twisted around to face Millicent.

Millicent did her best to look innocent, but Hermione's deshabille was quite obvious. The other girl gently pressed her fingers against the upraised hem of her skirt, and Millicent turned her head away, as if to provide privacy.

She nearly choked with shock when she felt Hermione grabbing at her thick fingers and pressing them against the soft skin of Hermione's thigh.

Responding as if she'd touched a hot cauldron, Millicent snapped her hand away and clasped her errant fingers chastisingly. She couldn't quite believe that Hermione had actually done it - begun to place her fingers exactly where she'd been wanting for many long, long minutes.

But as soon as her brain caught up with the course of events that had passed, Millicent grew even more embarrassed. She hadn't expected this - Hermione's apparently desperate lust.

And once it occurred to her that since Hermione seemed to want this, Millicent realized she'd made a terrible mistake by drawing her hand back with such revulsion.

Indeed, Hermione seemed to be facing genuine conflicting emotions.

They couldn't talk here, though. Millicent wiggled her way out of the couch - a truly laborious effort, as it was almost the comfiest she'd ever been privileged to sit in. Then, she stood, and motioned for Hermione to follow.

They placed their books in a basket labeled "for re-shelving," though Millicent ended up taking hers out again and going to give the man at the front some coins. He accepted them, barely glancing to check they paid the price cited on the cover, and waved them out of the place.

Hermione looked sad, and as soon as they exited the place, she looked mad.

"Don't you want to touch me?" she demanded, throwing herself down onto the iron bench in the front of the shop. "Or am I just too repulsive? Being a muggleborn and all?"

"No, of course not," Millicent said, swallowing the lump in her throat. "I just… I just was startled, is all. Also," she added a bit defensively, "it's a bookstore."

Hermione's eyes glowed dangerously, but after a few tense moments, she took a deep breath and calmed herself. "If you say so," she said. Then, a little more brightly, she asked, "Are you hungry?"

Millicent tried to appear nonplussed. "Erm, I could eat."

"Then let's go," Hermione said, and flounced in the direction they'd come. Millicent followed, curious but just a touch cranky.

* * *

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	12. Chapter 12

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave KIND and ENCOURAGING reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

They ended up in the very hospitable pub, where Hermione ordered the house special of fish and chips with boiled peas and carrots. Millicent went with her age-old strategy of ordering the same - a trick she'd learned after years of her mother's nagging and hypocrisy. (If her mother ordered something, and Millicent ordered the same as her, her mother had no grounds for critique).

The food came, and was significantly more than either of them could eat together.

Hermione didn't pay the least bit of attention to that, instead ploughing through it while talking up a storm about what she'd been reading in the bookstore. "So the point was," she concluded, pushing away her half-full plate, "One of the primary objectives of the nazileen potion is to act as a filter, similar to the aqualimus, though clearly this one goes in the nose, whereas the other is meant to be dropped into water."

"Right," Millicent responded, and looked down at her clean plate soberly. She'd eaten every damn morsel, and now all she wanted was Hermione's leftovers.

Hermione seemed to pick up on this, and pushed her plate a little bit closer to Millicent, not saying anything about it, but barreling on in her thoughtful musings. "So there's a few things I noticed in the development of the nazileen potion that might be applicable to the aqualimus. First, the methods of stirring are very similar. Second, while they're clearly both aimed in a similar direction in terms of their theses, they really do the opposite things - one expands and diffuses, and the other contracts and effectively replaces the mucus in the nose, clogging it."

Millicent tentatively stabbed her fork into Hermione's leftover fish, and looked up questioningly. Hermione nodded succinctly, and then continued, "Third, they were both invented by the same person - did you know that?"

"No," Millicent said, tucking enthusiastically into the remaining food.

"Neither did I," Hermione said, "but it makes sense when you think about it. The nazileen potion just isn't used much anymore, not since other alternatives like Bramson's Clog have been brought into use. But the nazileen potion is the result of Phineas Roviticus' experiments during the mid-1800s. And to this day, no one has improved the recipe of the aqualimus potion substantially enough to change the recipe."

"And why is that?" Millicent asked, since she supposed Hermione had an answer.

"It's not frequently used, first of all," Hermione said, "and second of all, it's mostly been used as a didactic tool for classes who are in the process of learning about the expungiency theory. As we were doing," she noted, "but for whatever reason, people are really shite at synthesizing information and applying it in unusual ways."

It took a second for Millicent to realize that this was a backhanded compliment, and she blushed. What was it about Hermione that made her turn as red as a dirigible at the slightest provocation?

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she'd finished all her food at this point, and she'd really overdone it. She was quite full, and she sipped her oakmead carefully.

Hermione, intelligent witch, picked up on Millicent's slight discomfort, and asked quietly, "Are you all right?"

"Oh, erm, yes, quite," Millicent said, a satisfied smile on her face. "I just need to finish my mead."

"Of course," Hermione conceded graciously, and she continued to prattle on about her thoughts about the potion.

MIllicent contributed to the conversation as she could. Mostly, she was overwhelmed with comfortable pleasure. They were cozy together in the pub, Hermione was engaged and bright and interesting to listen to, almost like reading a book. Millicent couldn't stop herself from continuing to turn the pages, gluttonous to know more about this mysterious girl who somehow was interested in spending time with her.

* * *

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	13. Chapter 13

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave KIND and ENCOURAGING reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

They returned to Hogwarts earlier than most of the other students, trudging alone together behind Argus Filch, who seemed uninterested in them.

The air was crisp and cold even in the early afternoon. Despite it being so early, the sun was already on the verge of setting, as it was wont to do in winter. The creamy pinks and purples of the sunset were shining over them as they reached the castle, and Filch held open the big doors for them.

"Let's wait," Hermione said, and shook her head at FIlch.

The man shrugged, clearly not interested in why, and went into the castle to warm his brittle bones.

Hermione then extended her arm to Millicent, who took it, shyly.

They shared a bristling shiver against the wind, which seemed intent on pushing them inside after Filch.

Millicent felt her hands getting cold, and she stuffed them into her pockets, which honestly weren't much help. She took one out and blew on it to warm it up.

"Hey," Hermione said, "this is what you're supposed to do."

Then she suited the action to the word, and she grabbed Millicent's hand and placed it in the space between her cotton collared shirt and her comfy grey wool sweater, which had a Gryffindor patch on the upper breast.

Millicent nearly exploded with the sensation and surprise, her face coloring redder than it had the entire day.

"What?" Hermione asked with a smirk, looking uncommonly sneaky for a house that had a lion for its house animal. "I watched a documentary on people climbing the Himalayas. They said the part of the body that gives off the most body heat is the tum."

Millicent opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. She was fairly sure that this was a sign of attraction, of consent, of sexual interest - but there was something so primal and startling about it. It left her breathless and wordless. Her entire body seemed to be quivering with adrenaline and desire. Even though it wasn't skin on skin contact - her fingers still felt hot at the touch of Hermione's squishy little tum underneath the fabric of the shirt. There was something nice to grab and hold, which was utterly mesmerizing. Solome had never felt like this beneath her fingers. Nor Ginny, for that matter.

Millicent's fingers ached for more. The pudge of her fingers felt relieved at the softness of Hermione's belly, as if they had been waiting for this day when they no longer would be forced to resign themselves to hard, angular women with occasional soft places. Instead, Millicent had a whole lot of softness all over to enjoy on Hermione's body. Granted, it wasn't nearly so much as on her own body, but she supposed that would change over the years.

Wow. Millicent was starting to think in terms of years again. Oh, this was bad, she knew. This was very bad.

Millicent felt lightheaded, her heart and mind aching with the sensory overload, and she closed her eyes to try and steady herself.

Hermione was calculating, eyes carefully analyzing Millicent's face.

"What's wrong?" she finally asked, biting her lower lip and looking as if she had made a grave error. "Is this... Not good?"

The one thing that Millicent could do at this moment was vigorously deny this. She shook her head, and her bangs bounced against her brow.

Hermione seemed heartened by this, and her fingers detached themselves from Millicent's, leaving Millicent's hands under her shirt while Hermione's own placed themselves on Millicent's comfortable waist.

"Or is it just that you want me to touch *you* there," Hermione asked, staring into Millicent's profound green eyes. Her fingers began to circle down the front of Millicent's plump belly, tracing the curve of Millicent's softness with her thumbs rubbing in tiny circles.

Millicent had never known how much she wanted that until the idea came out of Hermione's beautiful dark garnet lips.

"Yes," she gasped, and removed her own hands from Hermione's shirt and thrust Hermione's up in her own.

She didn't bother with the tease of forcing a barrier between Hermione's fingers and her own skin. Millicent simply lifted her whole front shirt, revealing her yellow-white pale tum, which contrasted so brightly against her black trousers and grey sweater. It overhung her trouser band limply, revealing that it was getting a bit tight even for Vincent's biggest hand me down pair.

But because it was cold, Millicent didn't waste time in positioning Hermione's fingers straight on her big luscious belly, and then covering up her fingers again by pulling the shirts down.

Hermione didn't waste time either, grabbing Millicent's doughy softness in either hand and kneading it gently.

"Oh Merlin," Millicent moaned, feeling her vaginal muscles tighten with the sensation. She rolled her head back and groaned.

Hermione then proceeded to push Millicent slightly backwards, until Millicent felt the sturdy rock of the castle wall supporting her, and before Millicent knew it, Hermione Granger was kissing her. With tongue.

And Merlin, it was wonderful.

* * *

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	14. Chapter 14

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave KIND and ENCOURAGING reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

They ended up back in Hermione's room. Millicent wasn't entirely sure why they chose there rather than somewhere else more discreet, but she couldn't bring herself to care once she got another flash of Hermione's creamy chocolate thigh.

She proceeded to dutifully taste this thigh for the rest of the afternoon. And more, besides the thigh.

For her part, Hermione seemed mostly delighted but also a bit passive - she'd done the immensely difficult work of setting Millicent up for the race, and Millicent had enough endurance for a cross country marathon, once she got up to speed. So to speak.

Millicent was exhausted soon enough, however. She was coated in sweat from brow to her toes, and her jaw and tongue were a bit stiff from her lack of recent practice. But she couldn't bring hersf to care what she looked like or how she felt. She luxuriated in the sublime feeling of having feasted well of pussy, and having more to go back to once her hunger piqued again.

The candlelight shone in little sparks, highlighting the darkness of the room beyond Hermione's beautiful chintz lace curtains.

Hermione, for her part, looked every bit the sexual savant, splayed across her pillows panting, the whispery clear cum from her vagina, glistening in the candlelight across her creamy thighs like the contents of a smashed snow globe.

She was beautiful, and wicked, and intelligent, and assertive, and Millicent was drunk with love.

"So," Hermione said, sitting up finally and rubbing her fingers along the inside of her thigh with a handkerchief. "What is this, Millicent?"

"I don't know," Millicent said, feeling nervous and put on the spot. "I guess... I don't see why this has to be anything more than what it is."

Hermione's beatific face turned pensive and dark with concentration.

"It's... Oh I don't know," Millicent said, "I don't want to say the wrong thing."

Hermione reclined again, and Millicent breathed a sigh of what she imagined was... Relief? Satisfaction? She couldn't tell.

Hermione's fingers slowly trailed through the edges of the curtains, making them fall in rippling waves like a harp's strings. She lay her other hand on her lap, casually obscuring its mass of shadow.

"Do you want this to be more than it is " Hermione asked, not taking her hand away from the gentle swinging curtains, staring off into the distance. Had she been carved of ebony, she could not have made a better statue. She was relaxed, and curious, and yet Millicent saw the strength and courage in her.

Millicent could scarcely contemplate anything other than the beauty that lay before her.

"I think so," Millicent said nervously.

Hermione turned her eyes back to Millicent and she felt them sucking deeply at her soul, drinking in her mind and power, and Millicent reached to pull the warm sheepskin blanket over her naked body.

"All right then," Hermione said, and there was a sense of amusement in her voice. It didn't seem to be directed at Millicent, however - there was the glistening of excitement in Hermione's eyes. "Then let me draw up a reading list."

"Hey," Millicent said in surprise, but didn't argue as Hermione acco'ed a piece of parchment and, eyes glittering, began to write a very, very long list.

* * *

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	15. Chapter 15

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave KIND and ENCOURAGING reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

* * *

Millicent returned to her room with the stack of books, most of which she'd gotten from Hermione, some of which she'd gotten in the library, and some of which she had to find at her usual favorite Hogsmeade bookstore. But reading Hermione's own books was what really made her happiest.

Some people, presumably like Madam Pince, had a tendency to see books as sacred in and of themselves, and despised any notations or markings in them. Hermione Granger was no such person, Millicent was pleased to see. It delighted her to no end, to sit in the Slytherin common room, or in her dormitory, or sitting up in the astronomy tower smoking, while reading one of Hermione's well-thumbed tomes. There were often little penciled notes in the margins, sometimes specific and concise, sometimes cryptic, sometimes meandering, and often unfinished. Hermione seemed to be a compulsive reader - whereas Millicent tended to approach it as a hobby, a diversion, a way of passing the time, Hermione seemed incapable of being without a book.

The more Millicent read of the books Hermione had already left in her wake, the more she realized that Hermione Granger was too fine for her. Too beautiful, too intelligent, too clever, too... good.

The books, all in all, were ones that reflected this essential quality of Hermione. Millicent ploughed through a rudimentary Muggle introduction to philosophy course, ranging from Plato to Leibniz to Simone De Beauvoir. In retrospect, once she knew more about such things, Millicent realized that Hermione's parents must have simply collected their old uni materials and presented them to Hermione, and the girl inhaled them in stride. There was, indeed, some puzzling handwriting in some of the older books that led Millicent to initially believe Hermione got them second-hand.

The first book Millicent finished was Plato. Once she'd completed it, on a Sunday afternoon, she approached Hermione in the dining hall. Hermione was holding a book in front of her while she sipped her soup for lunch.

"Sit with me," Hermione said, gesturing to the place next to her.

"Erm, I've already eaten," Millicent said, sitting down next to Hermione anyway.

Hermione simply quirked an eyebrow and, putting her book down, simply summoned one of the trays of warm chocolate cakes and deposited it in front of Millicent. "At least have dessert with me."

And how could Millicent say no to a beautiful witch asking her to eat?

But she did have to work for each bite. Hermione asked penetrating questions about the content, a hard look in her eyes whenever Millicent wavered in an answer.

"You should be a teacher," Millicent said once she had finally gasped out a final answer to Hermione's apparent satisfaction, and Hermione took the book back.

"Does that make you my student?" Hermione asked, reaching for the tray of chocolate tea cakes. They were warm, gooey, and delicious, and the dark chocolate stuck to her fingers even after she put the whole cake into her mouth. She licked her fingers and sucked at them to get the chocolate off.

It made Millicent woozy to watch, and based on Hermione's coy sideglance, she knew exactly how it made Millicent feel.

"If you like," Millicent said, grasping at her own tea cake and, with considerably less gusto than Hermione had exhibited, she put it in her own mouth.

Hermione grinned a little and picked up another tea cake, and her dark ruby lips surrounded it.

"I do like," said Hermione, and she licked her fingers once more, with relatively minor success. "Here," she said, picking up another teacake, this one colored a dark green, "be a dear and tell me if you like this flavor. I'm not sure if I want to try it myself, seeing how I've already eaten a bit too much for lunch."

Millicent, eyes wide with anticipation, happily obliged, opening her mouth and accepting the treat without comment. Only once she had chewed and swallowed did she say, with a calculated smile, "I'm not sure what it is. Pistachio? Mint? Spirulina? Please let me try another and I'll have a better idea."

"Of course, whatever you need," Hermione said, and with a wicked grin, she picked up another green cake and practically shoved it down Millicent's waiting throat.

"Definitely pistachio," Millicent said, swallowing the cake with a gulp. "Though perhaps it's not the one you'd like the most. Pass me one of those pink cakes, would you?"

"With pleasure," Hermione said, and with two gentle fingers, she delicately lifted the pink teacake and, with a little more grace, but no less enthusiasm, she put it into Millicent's mouth.

"Oh yes," Millicent said after she had swallowed the cake, "I know what this is. Yes. It's on the tip of my tongue, I just can't... oh dear. Could you pass me another one, so I can be reminded?"

Hermione's eyes were wide with fascination and excitement, and without a word, she offered Millicent the cake.

There was one more pink one, and Millicent innocently feigned a lack of remembering until the last one had entered her mouth.

"Oh, of course, how ridiculous. It's strawberry, of course," she said, smiling with immense satisfaction and settling back to accommodate her belly, which was starting to complain with fullness. "Now, what are those violet ones?"

There was a deep and painful lust rising in Hermione's eyes as she fed Millicent four purple tea cakes, only for Millicent to proclaim she knew they were the flavor of blueberry, and that she just needed to try the orange cakes as well.

Hermione couldn't help herself at that point, it seemed - Millicent's tum was starting to swell as the carbohydrates started to absorb the water in her stomach, stretching it firm. It rose like bread dough, inflating until it pressed up against her shirt-buttons.

Millicent began to worry that perhaps she had been mistaken to wear the smaller of her available shirts this day. She felt nearly ready to explode the shirt in a shower of buttons.

But Hermione seemed unable to break from the pattern they'd established, and she pressed each orange cake into Millicent's mouth, barely waiting for Millicent to finish chewing until she inserted the next one. Six little orange cakes of caramel flavor disappeared into Millicent's gullet, and Hermione was already offering the final batch of cakes - colored a creamy white - while Millicent licked her lips.

"Let's... let's adjourn elsewhere," Millicent said, her heart skipping a beat as she stood up gingerly. "I'm afraid that things are about to get a bit... erm..."

Hermione glanced around them. No one seemed to be paying much attention to them, save a few who couldn't accept that a Slytherin was sitting at the Gryffindor table for dessert, but then Millicent put one hand on her swollen belly. Hermione didn't need another hint, and quickly tipped the remainder of the tray of cakes into her never-ending purse.

"Let's go," she said, standing with some effort. She'd overindulged quite a bit, and in more than just soup, Millicent realized - Hermione's plump body was well-filled, and her protruding belly seemed to slosh ahead of her with every step. Soup was probably all she could get down by the end of her meal.

They trudged upstairs, slowly and carefully. Millicent offered her arm every time they came to one of the moving staircases, but Hermione just grinned and shook her head.

Finally, they landed, exhausted, in Hermione's bed, and they pulled the curtains tight around them.

"Now," Hermione said, shimmying out of her tight school-uniform, "the moment of truth."

She laid herself bare for Millicent, who marveled at the sight of Hermione's newly-acquired stretch marks in the belly area. Her breasts looked a little more round than usual as well.

"You look delicious," murmured Millicent, who was already bending down awkwardly to start servicing the other girl's dripping-wet nether regions.

"Not yet," Hermione said, and motioned at Millicent to take her own clothes off.

Millicent looked down at herself. She knew she liked Hermione with stretch marks on her dark skin, and the rippling jelly of fat across her body, but she couldn't quite tell if Hermione liked her body much at all. She knew she didn't like it, herself.

"Come on," Hermione coaxed, and then reached into her bag, withdrawing a cake and deeply breathing in its scent. "I would swear it's vanilla from the smell. But it might be almond. One can't be sure. We have to do some empirical tests."

"What, not like Hume?" Millicent asked, who had successfully taken a peek at the next thing on Hermione's list. Okay, maybe a bit more than a peek.

Hermione's eyes lit up, and suddenly Millicent was laying flat on the bed, and Hermione's jiggling dark thighs were above her, the chub twisting and tugging with Hermione's sudden motion.

"Yes, like Hume," Hermione said, her voice dark and seductive as the October wind at midnight. "Now you've been doing some reading ahead, Millicent. This cake is your reward."

Millicent, feeling so incredibly full, felt like she was unable to receive the reward. The smell of it under her nose was tempting, but she was also overwhelmed by the scent of Hermione's lust. She shook her head, and was satisfied to see how Hermione's thighs and belly jiggled as she shook the bed.

Hermione tsked, and leaned forward to whisper in Millicent's ear. "This is not a request. Do as you're told, or there will be hell to pay, Millicent."

Millicent closed her eyes, and then suddenly the smell of cupcake was no longer in front of her nose. She opened her eyes again and saw that Hermione had stuffed the cupcake partially into her cunt.

"You asked for it," Hermione said with a whimper, and extricated herself from being on top of Millicent. "Now eat me out, witch."

Millicent, for all her fullness, couldn't turn down a request like that. She leapt up, as well as she could on the bed, and dove head-first for Hermione's lower regions, easily accessible by the way she splayed her legs across the bed.

"No," Hermione said, putting her plump hand in Millicent's face. "There's one thing you have to do first. Take. Off. Your. Clothes."

Millicent eased herself up, her face turning serious. "You really want to look at... at this?" she asked, running her fingers down the front of her shirt. "I disgust myself, Granger. I don't see how you would want to see it."

Hermione's eyes were wise and strangely compassionate. "Come on," she said, and suddenly her hand was grasping Millicent's left arse cheek, and OH, it felt so good... "I actually do like looking at you. You make me forget what I've been reading."

Millicent's eyes were dark and foreboding. "I just... don't understand. Is it that you like me in spite of how I look?"

"No, you silly goose," Hermione said, and she sat up, a little bit more serious. "I like you exactly how you look."

"And if, for example, I were to slim down," Millicent said, a sigh of resignation emerging as she realized how unlikely it was that this would ever be successful, "You'd be more attracted to me."

"Less," Hermione said firmly.

Millicent's eyes widened. "And if I... put on another stone or two by the end of the term?" she asked quietly, "since that's where it seems I'm headed, with all these sweets you're stuffing me with?"

Hermione's smile was beatific. "I'd be more attracted to you."

Unable to comprehend this, Millicent lay down on the bed. "I've never met anyone who liked... this... before," she said, tapping her wobbly big belly with the palm of her hand. "Forgive me if I believe you're naive. You haven't been paying attention."

"Unless I have been, and closer than you'd imagine," Hermione said, and with a careful hand, she covered Millicent's own hand with her own. They rested there together, touching Millicent's expansive belly. "You're quite, erm, hot, actually," Hermione said, with a little bit of a squeak in her voice, and Millicent looked up at her in startlement.

Hermione was blushing furiously, which made Millicent actually believe her.

"So," Millicent said thoughtfully. "A girl who likes fat girls." She began to peel off her shirt. The buttons came apart joyfully, no longer forced to do their job against such adverse circumstances.

Then, once she was laid bare in front of Hermione, she began to rub at her massive tum, and cradled the soft bottom part of her gut where it had recently started to form what some folk call a 'front-butt.' The creamy flesh settled in a solid, comforting way in her hand, and she rubbed at the ugly red stretch marks that lined her skin with her pudgy thumbs. The motion made her flesh jiggle in an alluring way.

"And... erm, fat blokes," Hermione said, eyes wide and taking in Millicent's figure hungrily, "but yeah, mostly girls."

How interesting, Millicent thought. How interesting indeed.

She shook her head, and closed her eyes again, and took a deep breath.

"It seems that I've got a bit of room in here," she said, her voice rumbling as she summoned her deepest hungry voice, settling back on the pillows. "If you'd be so kind as to accommodate me."

"Of course," Hermione said, and there was a bit of a smile in her eyes. "Here."

She proceeded to stand up and ease her body above Millicent's head. Millicent didn't need any help to finish taking care of that cake.

But afterwards, Hermione did help Millicent finish off the cakes, bit by bit, stroking and rubbing Millicent's overextended tum.

It was sheer heaven.

And, as Millicent practically skipped back to her dorm room that late afternoon, she realized she had better get started reading the next book, and quickly. She couldn't wait to spend more time with the brilliant, beautiful witch who seemed to like her in such an unusual way.

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	16. Chapter 16

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There were many feelings floating around in Millicent's head over the next several weeks. She felt like she had to keep an eye on Hermione throughout the day - glancing over at the Gryffindor table multiple times during each meal to check and make sure Hermione was there, and see what she was doing.

The girl seemed to be spending less time with her ever-present friends, Harry and Ron, since she and Millicent had started doing whatever it was that they were doing. Millicent thought this was an estimable change. While Hermione would surely never be a pureblood or hold pureblood sensibilities, it was heartening to see that Hermione was not keeping company with such egregious brutes as those two were.

Millicent, in turn, found herself sticking in the company of Pansy and her ilk far less. Given the quality of her interactions with Hermione, what was the point of pretending that spending time with Pansy and their other housemates was satisfying in any way?

And as she began to detach, Millicent began to realize that the other girls really didn't seem to notice or mind that she was edging away from them. She normally would have taken this detachment in stride, recognizing it to be a self-preservation tactic frequently employed by pureblood families. Her own family was guilty of it over the years to various acquaintances who had either slipped in station or risen, and only once those acquaintances stabilized did her family reach out again. Slytherins, first and foremost, thought of themselves and their own. Therefore, it was part of protecting themselves, to keep away from those who might be in a vortex of change that might also suck them in and drag them to their doom.

It was such a cynical view of the world. Millicent had never questioned it. Change was bad, and led to horrible things happening to people she loved, so she had always done her best to avoid it when her friends and acquaintances had entered those mutable and shifting waters.

But now that she was undergoing her own form of change, Millicent wondered what it might be like, to be excited to see someone change. To stand by them, and to help them, to ensure they wouldn't drown, even if it meant costing her own safety and security. Purposefully taking the risk of being sucked into Hades to ensure that someone else didn't get sucked down into the darkness.

Millicent felt like this was an admirable quality of a Gryffindor. They didn't even think of it as taking a calculated risk, they just did it. They sacrificed themselves at the spur of a whim, and all for the sake of preserving something that was beautiful.

Oh, who was she kidding. The only reason she was having these kinds of thoughts was from the books Hermione was making her read. They were making her doubt her house and its values. Doubt her family. Doubt herself, even.

And as soon as she realized that this was what was happening, she saw that her housemates could also see it. They probably were able to see it before Millicent herself could.

Soon, Millicent realized her housemates were no longer just detaching from her, to give her space while she fluctuated and bobbed on the ocean of revision alone. They were outright positioning themselves in a phalanx against her, waiting for her to lash out of them violently.

Change, after all, was bad, and Millicent was changing, which meant that something bad was rising within Millicent.

She realized how bad it had gotten one night when, craving some company, she sat down next to Pansy for the first time in nearly a month. It was late February.

She had been careful not to go over to the Gryffindor table more than a few times a week, to sit and eat with Hermione. Firstly, Hermione tended to get like a cat denied its dinner when Millicent tried to get her nose out of a book, and secondly, Millicent didn't want to get the Slytherins to think she was abandoning the house.

Most of the time in the past month, as she'd done most of her time at Hogwarts she'd sat in her own corner of the Slytherin table, eating and reading the less suspicious books that Hermione had told her to read. She was good at keeping to herself, and it had the added benefit of giving her privacy to stuff her face if she felt like it.

But even these cautious changes had made the Slytherins reject her.

As Millicent settled down to join her dorm-mates for a rare attempt at making conversation, Pansy merely looked down her nose at her. "There's no room here," Pansy said, and her eyes were stone cold. "How about you go try the Gryffindor table?"

Millicent felt her cheeks flush red, and she hurriedly turned away and went back to her normal corner. She proceeded to stuff herself silly, in lieu of crying. It was more satisfying than running off in defeat to cry in the lav.

No, Slytherin didn't want her anymore, that was evident. But it wasn't as if Gryffindor would want her. Hell, *she* didn't want to be Gryffindor. Moreover, she'd never heard of anyone changing their house. That was such an extreme intervention, she doubted it had been done throughout the years at Hogwarts.

She didn't know what to do. Instead, during dinner, she watched Hermione. As usual, she was sitting on her own at the Gryffindor table, and reading. But then she seemed to notice something was amiss, and Hermione took her head out of her book, and immediately her eyes met Millicent's across the hall.

Millicent tried to convey what she could, through mere glance alone. Enough of the pain in her eyes reached Hermione that the other girl slowly closed her book, pushed her plate away, and slowly rose and left the hall, glancing back at Millicent to check that the Slytherin was coming.

Millicent didn't need an invitation, and was soon out of the hall after Hermione.

Hermione was worried as she greeted Millicent in the shadows of their usual rendez-vous corner outside the Great Hall.

"What's happened?" Hermione asked, and her eyes were full of anxiety.

"Nothing much," Millicent said, but despite herself she felt her chest constricting tightly, and her breath becoming short. "Just disaster and disgrace."

"Oh, no," Hermione said, and she offered her body to Millicent for comfort. Millicent pressed her arms around Hermione tightly, and clutched the girl close to her.

"The word is all around, it seems," Millicent said, and then suddenly she began to feel her eyes filling up with tears. "People can see that something is happening. Even though I've taken care to prevent that."

"Would you like to go somewhere quiet?" Hermione asked, and Millicent nodded gratefully.

Hermione proceeded to grasp Millicent's hand warmly - the first time they had publicly shown any affection towards each other - and led the girl up the dark staircases, to find a private place where Millicent could cry.

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	17. Chapter 17

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Millicent skipped back to her common room and pressed her hand against the wall behind the suit of armor that hid the common room entry.

"Grim Faced Whelk," she said confidently.

The armor looked at her petulantly.

"No?" Millicent asked, and frowned. Then she remembered the password had been changed yesterday.

"Aldridge Pear," she said, and the armor continued to be impassive.

She racked her brains. "Eldridge Pear?" She asked.

The armor shook its head in the negative.

"Aldridge Apple?" She asked, feeling foolish. She hadn't forgotten the password for the common room, ever. Her memory was very good.

Maybe the person who had passed on the info - was it Flora and Hestia? Yes it was, now she thought about it - maybe they were mistaken. But it didn't seem like the kind of mistake they would make.

In the meantime she tried further combinations, in particular plurals. "Eldridge Apple. Aldridge Pears. Eldridge Pears. Eldridge Apples. Aldridge Apples."

Receiving no response, she moved on to alternate old passwords that she remembered.

"Angus Filch. Boggart Bravery. Charles the Chump..."

She went through the entire alphabet, or at least until she got to "Weasley is our King."

It was only then that she lost her temper.

"This is hopeless," she said with a sigh. She pressed her forehead against the wall, willing it to open to her or waiting for someone else to walk through and give her the password.

She waited for ten minutes. No such luck.

"Oh Millicent," she moaned to herself, "what a stupid fat fool you are."

To her surprise, the armor creaked in response, "close enough," and the wall opened up to her.

To say she was surprised would not capture the amount of rage and despair that Millicent felt.

"I... Oh never mind," she said miserably, and she went inside the room.

She practically ran into Flora and Hestia, who were on their way out.

"We just heard," Flora said, her voice strained.

"We are so sorry," Hestia said, her voice very nearly overlapping Flora's, but not quite. They spoke together as if they had been rehearsing. They probably had been, actually. They didn't look joyful, and they descended upon Millicent like mourning doves, ushering her to a dark corner.

She looked across the room and saw Pansy Parkinson sitting in front of the fire, several other Slytherins sitting around her. All of them were pretending not to stare at Millicent as she entered the room. All of them, that is, except for Pansy, who was smiling brightly at Millicent. Baring her teeth, more like.

"It was unnecessarily mean," Hestia said, sitting in unison with her sister on the loveseat facing away from Pansy's coterie, her free hand fidgeting with the corner of her dress.

Millicent had no other chair than the one immediately facing the brigade of Slytherins who had turned against her. She turned her body to keep her eyes from going back to looking at them, memorizing their faces, like picking at an old scab that she knew was going to bleed after she scratched it.

"We had nothing to do with it," Flora added, though Millicent was only half listening, her heart constricted with rage.

"If our father knew, though, he'd fire you outright," Hestia said.

"He cares a lot about these things," Flora said.

"Unlike him, we like you," Hestia said.

"We want you to stay."

"But we simply can't work with someone who has earned the enmity of the house."

"The point is that we need someone to protect us-"

"-And now you're a liability, not an asset."

"Were it not so, of course it would be different."

Millicent opened her mouth to respond, but found herself at a loss for words. She had been worried about losing her position, yes - but she hadn't anticipated it would come from the two girls directly. They had more gumption than she'd given them credit for.

"Don't cry, Millie," Hestia said. Between the two girls who were barely distinguishable, Hestia was by far the most sentimental.

Millicent frowned. "I'm not going to cry," she said petulantly, squinting in another direction. Notwithstanding the fact that she had, in fact, been about to cry. "And my name isn't Millie. It's Millicent."

"But now we can be friends," Flora said, "however briefly. And friends can call each other nicknames."

Millicent snorted. She'd been their servant. Never their friend. What was this? She was immediately suspicious. "Us. Friends?"

The girls have Millicent symmetrical, prim smiles. "We won't tell da' till he hears about this on his own," Flora said, a scheme rising in her voice.

"Given how busy he keeps, I doubt it will be before next Christmas. Certainly he won't hear of it until well after the end of this term, so you won't suffer financially for it."

Millicent knew when she was being treated as a pawn.

"What's in it for you?" she asked, no further from tears than she had been. "Why even bother with me?"

Everyone knows I'm a fat pathetic fool, she thought to herself, and she wondered how her housemates had found the perfect criticism of her to drive a final wedge between them. It was almost as if someone had gotten into her brain, poked around for the most sensitive spot, and then made a copy to use as a weapon.

The girls looked at each other. They hadn't been prepared to answer this. It fell to Flora to answer, given she was more of the practical decision maker between the two.

"Because we know this war isn't going to favor the ways of old Slytherin," Flora said carefully. "And the reasons for this humiliation of yours are because of old Slytherin."

"We will be, together, a new Slytherin," Hestia added. "But it isn't our time yet. We have to wait until the old is vulnerable and then strike. Not before. So you see," she said, beaming, "we have a plan."

Oh, third years and their plans. Millicent was well aware of the schemes that the younger students could get themselves into. She remembered many misadventures of her own, many plots, many attempts to do great things. Well, perhaps trying to catch the Giant squid for a fry-up wasn't nearly as ambitious a goal as changing the entirety of an ingrained wizard culture, but still!

Nonetheless it was a pacifying thing, to hear the twins waxing poetic about a better world.

"So pray tell me," Millicent said, leaning back in her chair and placing one hand on her expansive belly. "What would this new order of Slytherin look like? Truffles at breakfast? Freedom to roam the halls at night? A fair chance to win the quidditch cup?"

The girls paused looked at each other and frowned.

"We hadn't gotten that far," confessed Hestia. "Mostly what we care about is protecting people like us."

"Like us?" Millicent asked, and snorted. "What do you take me for, exactly?" She was genuinely curious what the twins thought they had in common with her.

"A lesbian?" The girls said in chorus, and then clapped their hands over their mouths, embarrassed at being so loud. Then, with a whisper, they asked, "A lesbian?"

"Well, I guess I am," Millicent said, frowning. "But then... Are you saying that you two...also..."

An awful realization hit her. "But you're sisters?" she asked faintly, denying the impossible.

"You're wrong on two counts," said Flora, and said with a straightforward flourish, "First, we are a sister and a brother."

With that said, Flora's wand traced a circle on each of Hestia's breasts, and they suddenly flattened. Hestia Simultaneously cast her own charms over herself, and she suddenly was a good six inches taller, a hundred pounds heavier (all muscle), and had a grisly beard.

"Don't I look fabulous?" asked Hestia, his voice still feminine and dainty, "I can't wait until I graduate and can get my modifications. This is just the healer's mock-up."

"Father will have a fit, but we won't care by then. He's giving us our inheritances to do with as we please upon our graduation," added Flora.

"What's the other count I was wrong, out of curiosity?" Millicent asked. She felt a little bit shocked by the twin's revelation. A few years ago, she might have shunned them. But now… clearly the twins were doing this as a way of demonstrating their fidelity. It was an interesting concept, to be given leverage over the unique couple in such a manner.

Then again, she knew they had plans for her, and they were going to do quite a bit to make sure she was in their corner when the time came for them to act.

But that was fair, as long as there was reciprocity.

The twins, in response to her question, looked at each other with long and sober glances. Then, in an intense whisper, they added, "We're gay, too, of course."

Millicent restrained herself in time to keep from asking the obvious questions about Hestia's gender identity and attractions, and stopped herself in time. It was none of her business asking how a man could engage in gay sex without organic male parts. If Millicent knew anything about bodies and sex, she could guess the question would be a painful one.

The twins then stood. "We've got to go," Hestia said, the charm dispelling abruptly. "No need for it to look as if we're scheming."

"We're terminating our contract, understand?" Flora said loudly, so others could hear, standing and grasping Hestia's hand. "So go, Millicent. Go back to Gryffindor, if that's where you want to be. We don't care."

Hestia was tearing up a little bit, and Flora offered her sweater sleeve for Hestia to dab his eyes.

Millicent responded by running up to her room. She had to at least get Hermione's books.

It was only once she had packed her trunk and dragged it out of the common room that she slipped into a dark corridor and began to sob uncontrollably behind the safety of a silencing charm.

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	18. Chapter 18

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Millicent didn't sleep in a bed that night, instead curled in a broom closet a few feet from the Gryffindor's common room. The next day, she met Hermione in the Great Hall.

"Do you mind if I sit with you?" Millicent asked brightly, approaching Hermione at the Gryffindor table. She'd charmed away the harsh circles under her eyes, and otherwise she was faking it. She hadn't felt so profoundly miserable since Solome got married.

"Of course," Hermione said absently, waving Millicent towards a seat, and then turning a page, all without looking up. "Just don't expect me to entertain you. I'm reading."

Millicent nodded, and proceeded to load up her plate and get out her own book. In the pain of the recent situation, she'd dropped Hermione's assigned reading in favor of one of her favorite novels. It was comforting to go over the well-worn pages of a story she'd treasured since she was a little girl.

And while she read, she ate. Hermione did, too, of course, but she lacked the purposefulness that Millicent had in her approach to food. Hermione ate in an absent-minded way, stuffing her face with every page she turned, eating her delicate finger-sized scones with as little thought and attention as she was paying Millicent. Instead, her entire mind focused on her book.

Millicent, for her part, tried to keep her attention to her book, but the words glazed over as her eyes moved over the familiar dialogue and prose. She found her eyes throwing themselves helplessly on what she needed to sate her hunger.

She was, as it happened, powerfully hungry, and she wasn't sure if she could quite get away with eating as much as she desperately wanted to shove down her throat.

She tried her best to disguise how much she was eating by taking little helpings, then, when no one seemed to be looking in her direction, she'd get herself another slice of bacon, whisking it out of the pan with her bare fingers and sliding it into her mouth before anyone could notice. Then she'd do the same thing with the hard-boiled eggs. The boiled kidneys. The kippers on rye. The palm-sized slices of black sausage.

Yes, she was becoming incredibly good at creatively circumventing notice, the more she did it. It practically became a game. How many times could she sneak another bit of sausage or slice of toast before someone would cast their eyes in her direction?

She ate, and as she ate, she also paid attention to Hermione. The other girl was wearing a cozy, if frumpy, jumper. It was particularly irritating because of how big it was on Hermione's plump frame - it disguised the girl's growing gut in a frustrating way. It seemed at moments to accentuate her assets, and conceal them.

Though then again, perhaps Millicent should have worn a jumper herself. Her button-down was protesting against the amount of food she was hiding into her burgeoning tum, and while her tum was pleased to accommodate the quantity of food Millicent was swallowing, the pressed cotton was not nearly so forgiving.

Yes, she was starting to feel her button-down groan against her gut, particularly at the belly area. Millicent ran her hand down her front and, covertly, undid the bottommost buttons, leaving her flab exposed and vulnerable, hanging over her trousers. It permitted her tum to ooze out, like a bit of sausage being squeezed out of its casing.

It was oddly hot.

She couldn't remember ever being so big in her life. It occurred to her that she was on a doomed path to become the biggest, fattest Slytherin woman in recent history. She'd forever be thought of as the fat one of her cohort. She was probably going to surpass Slughorn's size within the next ten years, if not sooner.

This thought should have made her stop eating, or at least view herself with some amount of circumspection, but today, Millicent had lost all caution. She ate with wild abandon, while pretending she was only pecking at her food.

Once in a while, she glanced at Hermione. The other girl was clearly tuned out, and not paying any attention whatsoever. However, she watched with growing lust as the other girl finally started to show some signs of rounding out. Hermione had to readjust at one point, since the weight of her tum was starting to need a bit more support, and she spread her legs wide and leaned forward, extending her chest towards the table and offering the space between her legs to her plump, increasingly distended belly. Hermione rested her breasts on the table - and juicy though they were, they were nothing compared to her massive arse, which was full and succulent, and it seemed to be growing wider with every bite Hermione ate, though Millicent knew this was a mere illusion.

To watch Hermione eat made Millicent even hungrier, in many ways. She longed to seize Hermione, forcefully removing the girl from her book, and tie the girl to the dining hall bench, stripping her to her panties and knotting her with cord upon cord of rope. If Millicent had known about Jonathan Swift, she'd have made a comparison in this fantasy to Gulliver with the Lilliputians, but she didn't have that frame of reference yet.

Then, in this position, Millicent longed to stuff the girl with even more sweets. Make her really feel and taste what she was eating. Swallow every swallow with an intentionality that the girl wasn't indulging in. Hermione was so much a pragmatist, she never seemed to pay attention to what was really important - living, and breathing, with every moment she experienced.

Yes, Millicent realized she was having some rather dark thoughts indeed. She wanted to feed Hermione despite the girl's protests. She wanted to force feed Hermione, and keep her for a fat little pet. And she wanted Hermione to like it, despite all the odds.

These thoughts generated even more hunger, and Millicent found herself overeating to an extent she couldn't even remember herself achieving before. Not only was she eating past the point she was full, she was continuing to stuff herself, bite after bite after bite.

But soon Millicent's own near-endless gluttony seemed to catch up with her. She suddenly realized her belly had become far over-full, and she began to feel a little sick. She covertly burped into a napkin, and felt immediately better, enough to pour herself a piping hot mug of tea, with an excessive amount of sugar in it, and she sipped it, one hand landing on top of the protruding mass her belly created.

It was only then that Hermione closed her book with a sigh and turned towards her. And then Hermione's eyes widened.

Millicent was practically panting, sipping her tea and trying to keep another belch from coming from her throat.

"What have you done with yourself?" Hermione asked, and she leaned towards Millicent, her eyes somewhat worried, but there was also something else in them - a dark, mysterious burning desire.

She was turned on, Millicent realized, to see Millicent stuffed nearly to the point where she couldn't speak.

What version of heaven had she stumbled into? A confusing one indeed, where her house had turned against her, and Hermione Granger was attracted to the fact that she'd stuffed herself like a Christmas goose ready to roast.

"I... can you help me?" gasped Millicent, and she rubbed the top of her overstuffed tum gently.

"Of course," breathed Hermione, and she proceeded to touch and press against Millicent's gloriously full stomach.

Millicent closed her eyes at the exhilarating feeling of being poked, prodded, admired, and also a little bit chastised.

For Hermione was actually scolding her in a way that was utterly hot. Was scolding hot? Millicent had never guessed it could be.

"Why do you do this to yourself?" Hermione asked, a teasing lilt in her voice. "You just couldn't stop eating, could you?"

Millicent shook her head, and Hermione's eyes smoldered with sensuality.

"Shame, shame," tsked Hermione, and she laid her head down on Millicent's tum. The feeling of Hermione's ear against her in that too-tight sensitive place made Millicent nearly lose her panties right then and there. Then Hermione withdrew her face from where it softly squished into Millicent's belly, and she had an impish glint in her eye.

Millicent simply waited, not confident in her ability to speak right now.

"Just checking to make sure I hadn't got you in the family way, somehow," Hermione said after some deliberation. "You ate yourself to look absolutely preggers, Millicent."

Aside from the fact that it was amusing to hear Hermione Granger say the word 'preggers,' Millicent actually was worried now about the state of her panties. They'd need a thorough cleaning, if she ever found them again once she threw them off and fucked herself with her hairbrush handle until she was senseless.

"I suppose," Millicent said, "I just couldn't stop."

"You're such a pig," Hermione said, and she heaved herself up. "Come on now. I think there's some things we need to take care of before class."

"I concur," Millicent said, and she also painfully stood. "Broom closet?"

Hermione smirked. "If you fit."

If Millicent had been the fainting sort, that would have surely done her in.

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	19. Chapter 19

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That night, Millicent pretended to leave the Gryffindor common room, but instead curled up under a table that had a wide space underneath it, and a cloth that ran down to the floor. It was better to be there than to brave the scorn of her house mates with the scent of Hermione still between her fingers.

Pilfering a throw and some pillows from the couches, Millicent was indeed very comfortable there in the darkness. No one disturbed her, since the table was perpetually occupied by an unfinished game of Dungeons and Dragons that some fourth-year Muggleborns played weekly. There was just enough space for her and a bowl of crisps, which she kept and munched on until she fell asleep with the empty bowl resting on top of her belly.

This ended up becoming a habit. Millicent ended up there for five nights in a row, until her luck ended. A third year discovered her during a midnight game of Gobstones, when one of the stones rolled under Millicent's couch and zapped her, thinking she was a player. The resulting howl had roused the nodding off prefect Ronald Weasley, who was draped over a nearby couch with a book that couldn't keep his attention.

"What's all this?" he asked, lumbering over and peering under the table where the third year pointed with trepidation. "Great Merlin's balls," he swore as he sat back on his haunches. "A Slytherin in the Common Room. And she's a big 'un."

"Come on," said the third year, a devilish rogue named Maudrey, one of the Gobstones players, "can we drag her outside and toss her into the Whomping Willow?"

"No," Ron said, and he focused keenly on Millicent. He seemed to steel himself against the suggestion, as if remembering a time when he had landed in the Whomping Willow himself. "Why would you think that was a good idea?"

"She's the Slytherin that been eating at the Gryffindor table too much," said Maudrey. "Come on now, she clearly deserves we do something to her. Sneaking in here and trying to catch our Quidditch plots."

"I swear, I'm not," Millicent said woozily, grabbing her glasses and putting them on. She had a tight squeeze under the table there, and she wasn't able to get up and out of her hiding place. "I don't give a fig about Quidditch."

Ron looked thoughtful, and strangely compassionate for a Weasel.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, and Millicent felt, for the second time in her life, like confiding in a Weasley.

She decided to take a risk. Play up her misery. Pull at his Gryffindor heartstrings.

"My house won't let me back in," she said with a cracking voice. "They don't like that I'm dating a Gryffindor."

Ron frowned. "That's not right," he said stiffly, "folks should be able to date whomever they like, no matter what their house."

"I know," Millicent said sadly.

"So," he went on conspiratorially, standing up and sitting on the couch. He gestured for her to come out, and she did begrudgingly sit up, draping the tablecloth around her like a hood. "Do you mind telling me - who is it?"

Millicent had a sudden flood of panic as she realized that she had no idea if she and Hermione were actually dating or not. What would Ron say if he knew she was dating one of his closest friends? Moreover, what if Millicent outed Hermione by accident? She didn't want to be responsible for such a fiasco.

So instead she kept her lips tight as Ron and Maudrey tried to guess the identity of her lover, alternately throwing names at her.

"Cormac McLaggen?"

"Benedict Bramblepatch?

"Colin Creevy?"

"Stephen Chip?"

"No," Millicent said to each, taking a deep grateful breath.

Crisis averted - the boys had no idea that they were aiming at a completely different area of town than she came from. "None of those. I don't want to play guessing games, boys - I'd prefer if you're going to kick me out, to do so swiftly and not draw out the process."

"Let's not be hasty," Ron said, and he put one of his big hands on her shoulder comfortingly. "Now, why is it that you can't just spend the night in the dorms with them?"

Millicent looked uncomfortable, but she had anticipated this. "I would be disgraced," she said sadly. "This situation is complex and I want to maintain whatever small amount of dignity I can in this situation. Also," she added, blushing a little bit, "practically speaking, the beds aren't exactly accommodating of two. Particularly such big persons, as I am."

"You're not fat, if that's what you're saying," Ron said comfortingly, but it was an automatic lie, as if he'd been drilled on the subject of "tell girls they aren't fat."

"Thanks," Millicent said. She took it as a sign that he was actually in her corner, for the moment. "But I am fat. And that's all right. It just makes sharing a dormitory bed quite impossible."

Ron frowned, and didn't say anything. Then, finally, he decided, "I can't let you sleep here. Let me get someone to help you out."

He snapped his fingers at Maudrey, who sulkingly stood up to go back to her game. "Maudrey, would you go up to the girl's dorms and get Hermione for me?"

The other girl shrugged, kicked the offending Gobstone that had found Millicent in the first place back into the game circle, and with light stocking feet raced up the girl's dorm stairs.

Millicent felt her stomach begin to clamor for something to eat as she realized that Hermione was going to find out about her sleeping in the dorm.

Oh well. She had been disgraced enough by her house - and she knew Hermione well enough by now to know that the other girl was a softie when it came to those maligned.

Millicent honestly couldn't have thought of a better resolution to her situation, to have Ron paint her as a silent uncomplaining martyr who so sweetly sought solace in the common room of her lover. It was a bit pathetic, but it would probably end up well for her.

Soon enough, a sleepy and cross Hermione came thumping down the stairs in her familiar katanke nightgown.

"What is it, Ron?" she demanded, flouncing towards them without making eye contact with the weasel. "This had better be worth it."

"Oi, you still mad about Lavender?" Ron asked hotly, "what a riot."

He shook his head, and she glowered at a spot on the floor, refusing to look at him.

Then Hermione saw Millicent, and her eyes widened.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, folding her arms over her chest. There was curiosity in her eyes, but also caution. She wasn't sure how to proceed, it seemed to Millicent.

Ron, fortunately, was willing and able to put his foot in it on her behalf. "Millicent is dating some bloke in our house, 'Mione, and as a result, the scumbags that the rest of Slytherin are, they have cast her out. She has come to us for help, 'Mione, and as prefect, I intend to do her the favor of helping her. And I hope you'd be willing to do us the honor of helping Millicent find a place to sleep that isn't under this table."

"When did she say she was dating a bloke?" asked Hermione, her tone acid. She was fearsome to look at, and she was assessing Millicent carefully.

"I didn't," Millicent quietly said, casting a glance between the two Gryffindors.

Then Ron opened his eyes wider.

"Oh, erm, sorry Millicent. I just assumed you..."

"It's all right," Millicent said, waving it away.

Hermione's eyes were penetrating and a little bit anxious. "I'll make sure she knows you're here," she said softly. "Come with me, Millicent. I'm sure we can work something out."

Then she looked Ron briefly up and down. "Your zip's undone," she said to him matter-of-factly, and briskly headed up the stairs to the girl's dorms.

As his hands went to cover his willy, which was not in fact exposed, the two girls headed up the stairs.

Millicent sensed tension in Hermione's mind - the girl refused to say anything the entire way up the stairs, refused to touch Millicent when Millicent extended her hand, and kept several steps ahead of the plumper Millicent, who was a little bit slow on stairs.

"Hermione?" she asked with a huff of a breath. Hermione had stopped in front of her room. She stiffened, pressed her ear to the door, and then, apparently satisfied, she opened the door.

"Come," she whispered, and took off her shoes.

Millicent sat down and removed hers as well. They had to be covert of course - Hermione apparently had no intention of letting her roommates know about her uninvited guest.

Together, they moved across the darkened room, Hermione's skin melting into the shadows, Millicent's making her appear a ghostly bluish in the light of the moon.

Hermione gestured silently at the bed, and Millicent heaved herself onto it. It felt all the more comfortable after having spent several nights on the floor, and she relaxed into it luxuriously.

But there was barely enough room for Hermione, who would have managed if Millicent had laid on her side, and Hermione had laid on her side as well, and they had packed together like sardines. But such was not conducive to a good night's sleep, and Hermione, ever practical, seemed to realize that.

She also was a whiz at transfiguration, Millicent was reminded as Hermione briskly tapped the bedposts with her wand and expanded the bed ever so subtly.

It wasn't a big change, but she had managed to expand the little cot just enough to accommodate Millicent's girth in addition to her own. Hermione proceeded to lay down and embrace Millicent, pressing her face into Millicent's enormous breasts.

"I knew something was off," whispered Hermione. "I'm sorry. Did they kick you out?"

"Rather," acknowledged Millicent sadly. She declined to tell Hermione more of the story, given their need to be quiet.

Two fit snugly against each other. It was immensely comfortable. Both of them were taking deep, careful, relaxing breaths, and snuggling closer to each other.

"Mmm," Hermione whispered, not able to help herself. "You're so soft and warm."

"Do you get cold at night?" asked Millicent, feeling her tummy muscles relax as she began to spread out a little bit int he bed.

"Rather," Hermione said, and pressed herself closer to Millicent.

"This won't work well long-term, unfortunately," Millicent said, pressing a kiss into Hermione's bushy kinky hair. "I have chronic issue with being too hot."

Hermione didn't move, but shrugged. Millicent relished the feeling of her hot breath on her bare skin where her collarline revealed it."Somehow we'll manage, I suppose."

With that, Hermione sighed contentedly and turned over. "I don't know what the morning will bring," she whispered, "but I'm happy you're here."

"I'm happy you invited me," Millicent replied, kissing the nape of Hermione's neck and grasping Hermione around the belly. "This is lovely."

* * *

They fell asleep there like that, Millicent gazing out the window of the dorm through Hermione's chintz curtains, staring up at the moon and stars that flickered between the lace. please leave comments and reviews! Please! also don't forget about the **fatwarts** tag on tum blr


	20. Chapter 20

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

check out the tag **FATWARTS** on tum blr where you can find some cool artwork themed after my stories!

* * *

She woke up the next morning and found the bed empty, and the curtains drawn. They'd been darked with a spell that made them look, on the inside, like the night sky. When Millicent drew back the curtains, the sun was shining brightly through the lattice window of the dorm room, and the room was empty of all roommates.

She hastily wrapped herself in a blanket against the colder than usual late February day, and, wearing the blanket as a hood, she walked downstairs to her broom closet outside of the Gryffindor dorm. There, she put on her clothes for the day and went about her business.

She didn't know why Hermione hadn't awoken her, but that wasn't the point. Now she had to go and live her life, and pretend that she wasn't a changed person.

But with every step she took towards the Great Hall, Millicent felt a little burble of joy and anxiety well inside her. She knew she needed to get a hold of herself. Surely Hermione wasn't nearly so fumbly and light-headed this morning after such a glorious night of cuddling together. Chances are, her back was hurting and she felt underslept no matter how much tea she drank.

Ah, tea. That sounded about heavenly right now.

As Millicent entered the Great Hall, she halfway expected people to turn and stare at her. But no one did. She was just one more bedraggled student dragged out of bed late on a Saturday morning. No one paid her any attention at all - neither the Slytherins nor the Gryffindors, nor anyone else. It was as if they'd had a secret pact not to talk to each other.

For the most part, Millicent was grateful that she could be left alone to her thoughts. But still she felt like they were purposefully ignoring the very important feelings that were no doubt painted across her face. And she felt the slight, even though it wasn't real, she knew.

She looked around for Hermione at the Gryffindor table. She saw a pot of tea left behind in the manner that she recognized Hermione used it - positioned at the perfect angle for the other girl to pick it up and pour whilst reading. There was also a plate there, licked clean and tidy. Yes, Hermione had been here. And she was probably in the library.

Alas, Millicent saw that she was to eat alone. But where?

Seeing as no place availed itself at the Slytherin table, and she was already at Hermione's place, she went ahead and sat down. It wasn't as if there were any better options.

So she sat there, and took for herself about a half-dozen doughnuts and laid them upon her plate. She surrounded them with rashers of bacon, sweet and maple-flavored, and doused the whole serving with nearly a quarter of a jar of honey.

Ah yes, this was the breakfast she wanted.

Her fork went to her mouth, and she relaxed into the symphony of taste that laid itself in her mouth. Then her hand reached out to touch the teapot left by Hermione. It was still warm, and judging from the way it sloshed invitingly, there was a bit of tea left in it.

Millicent poured herself a fragrant cup. Hermione, she knew, prefered a strong blend of black tea flavored by a hint of mango. The taste was like liquid sunshine, and it was tropical and warm and bright as it washed across Millicent's palate like the tide against the Moroccan shore.

She desperately wished that Hermione would think to come back. And she realized that eventually Hermione would probably return, seeing that she left a spot of tea in her pot. Hermione rarely did this, and Millicent had the sense that Hermione might have done this for her. Perhaps.

Perhaps not, of course, but she flattered herself to think that Hermione was looking out for her, in the same Slytherin way that Solome had tried to.

It might not have been realistic, but there was no harm in a little imagination, was there?

So Millicent sat there and dutifully finished her overloaded plate, bite by hasty bite, and then she realized she should have been reading the whole time. She got her most recent book prescribed by Hermione from her book bag and proceeded to load up her plate again, this time with mash and sausage.

She sat there and thumbed her way through Alice Walker's The Color Purple, which she found disturbing but strangely mystifying.

It came as a surprise when her fork scraped around her plate a final time, and she hadn't found herself any more morsels of food. She'd cleaned another heaping plateful without even a blink.

And Hermione hadn't returned.

The Great Hall was already sparsely attended when Millicent came in, and there were still a few people coming in, but mostly the breakfast crowd was on its way out.

She knew it was customary for those who liked to linger a little more over their morning cuppa to have their privacy to do so, on a Saturday morning, and she continued to sit there. But she did not resume reading until she had filled her plate a third time with more sausage and mash, and also set aside several enormous scones for her further consumption once everything else had disappeared magically into the kitchens.

This sated her at long last, once she was done with it. Satisfied, her fingers ran down the front of her cardigan as she rummaged around the cluttered table until she found another pot of the delicious mango tea that Hermione favored. It was steaming hot, and she settled down to pour herself a cup.

Fresh from the pot it was a lot stronger and hotter, of course, and Millicent sipped it, her fingers worrying the buttons of her shirt through the forgiving fabric of her cardigan.

She'd found that in order to conceal the complete disarray of her button-downs these days, she had to constantly wear something over them. Gone were the days she could comfortably waltz around in just her shirts - these days her breasts and bulbous belly made too many unseemly gaps that would have made her mother blush with rage.

No, nowadays she had to wear cardis over everything. They effectively disgused some of the portliness she'd acquired, but only until you looked at her from the side - once you did, you could see how pronounced and vast her tum had gotten in recent months.

Ah, yes. She grabbed onto the thick flab of gut that squeezed out over her waistband, and squeezed it affectionately. While some could never understand the appeal of her body, she had a newfound appreciation for it after spending last night with Hermione. She sipped her tea, and she let the headiness of the sensations she felt overwhelm her. Here she was, sitting with a good book, luxuriously wrapped in the rolls of her own overindulgence, sipping a fragrant and aromatic tea favored by her lover, fresh from a night of unsurpassed lovemaking and tender affection.

Millicent felt positively drunk on her own glory.

Then, all of a sudden, she heard a set of heavy footsteps coming from the entrance of the Great Hall entry.

As she'd been subtly doing for the past hour, Millicent glanced at the door to register who was entering. Was it Hermione? She felt pathetic, infatuated, but so what?

This time, unlike the previous dozen, it actually was Hermione. And she looked elated to see Millicent.

In fact, the other girl jogged up to the table where Millicent sat in her repleteness, and Hermione sat down immediately next to the other girl. Even the short dash across the hall had made her winded, and she had to take a moment to catch her breath.

"How are you this morning?" asked Millicent with a smirk, appreciating the way Hermione's breasts heaved with the exertion. The girl had been truly putting it on recently, and her belly was now truly flabby and rotund, and Hermione's clothes seemed plastered against her expanding tum.

"Could be better," Hermione said, and as Millicent poured her a cup of tea, she accepted it gratefully. "I do have good news, however."

"And what is that?" Millicent asked, feeling her heart thrum in her chest like the call of a bird greeting the sunrise. The sense of anxious expectation that had been in her belly all morning now reemerged even more forcefully than before. She unwrapped one of her scones from its napkin, and stuffed nearly the whole thing in her mouth.

"I've solved your problem," Hermione said, her eyes lighting up. "You won't have to sleep in the Slytherin dorms anymore."

Millicent was shocked. "I... what?" she asked, and she put down the scone on the table. "Wait, how?"

"I talked to Professor McGonagall," said Hermione, and she was beaming. "She has arranged it so that you now have your own bedroom in one of the spare ones normally kept for staff. She was not thrilled to make the accommodation, but there you have it. You'll not have to keep sleeping in the Gryffindor tower any longer."

Millicent felt her heart sink. She'd LIKED being in the Gryffindor tower. And she'd particularly liked being so close to Hermione.

"I... thanks?" she said, fighting back what seemed to be tears emerging from her eyelids. She managed successfully, and she looked up at Hermione with what she hoped was a brave face. "I just... I didn't expect there to be that simple of a solution."

Hermione shrugged. "She offered it to me at one point. As well as Luna Lovegood. I knew it was an option. But neither of our situations is quite as vile as yours is. I'm glad you can benefit from it."

"I'm comforted at how you have helped me," Millicent said, though her heart was aching. It was true, though; Hermione had been trying to be thoughtful. Millicent was clever enough to read between the lines. Even though the result was exactly the opposite of what she herself preferred.

"I'm glad you approve," Hermione said briskly, with a nod of her head. "Now, if you don't mind, I've got to be headed to the library."

"Let me come with you," Millicent said, rising slowly, pushing away her half-finished tea.

Hermione looked at Millicent, and looked at the unfinished tea, and then sighed and sat again. Millicent did the same, feeling like there was something off about the situation.

Then Hermione said, "You're reading the Alice Walker book," and she then reached for her own unfinished cup of tea. She downed it in a gulp. "I'm a bit surprised you've gotten this far on my list."

"Really?" Millicent said, and she sensed that there was something unsettling behind Hermione's words.

"Yeah," Hermione said, and, staring into her cup, she explained, "I'm surprised you care so much what this dirty muggleborn cares about."

"I..."

Millicent didn't exactly know how to respond to that.

"It's complicated," she responded finally. "I like reading books that are so diametrically opposed to my own views."

"Ah," Hermione said, "and why is that?"

Millicent, having become used to defending her reading choices in the Slytherin common room, said without thinking, "It helps me refine my own arguments and understand how, so to speak, the enemy might think."

Then she realized what she'd said, and she put a hand over her mouth. The half of scone that had been on its way to her mouth dropped onto her sloping belly, landing squarely in the place where her belly formed a shelf under her breasts.

And then, Hermione's eyes narrowed. "Is that how you think of me?" she asked, and there was an intense malice and anger behind those words.

"No," Millicent said, her heart breaking as she saw Hermione being mad at her. "I... I don't think of you that way at all, Hermione," she said, "It just slipped out..."

"In Muggle studies, if you'd bothered to taken it, you might have heard of something called a Freudian Slip?" Hermione said, and she stood up. She brushed the crumbs off the front of her own paunch, and dusted off her skirt as well.

Millicent watched the crumbs tumble down from Hermione's body, and she couldn't tear her eyes away. She felt like those crumbs - she was being dismissed just as swiftly and easily.

Hermione Granger was hot-tempered. It was part of why Millicent had fallen for her. It also, seemingly, was to be her doom.

"I really didn't mean it," she said, feeling her heart breaking as Hermione steeled herself visibly against her words. It didn't matter what she said at this point. The damage had been done.

"Methinks she protests too much," Hermione said with a sneer, and stomped away. Only once she was several paces away did she turn around, and announce, "Last night was a mistake. I'm sorry you had to be burdened with sleeping with the enemy."

"No," Millicent said, but it was far too little, too late.

Hermione had left the Great Hall, and all of Millicent's warmth and happiness had gone along with her.

* * *

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	21. Chapter 21

Hey all!

I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

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* * *

All this, understandably, led to a very Not Good place for Millicent.

She was destroyed.

Since there was no point in going back to Gryffindor, she didn't bother finding out what the new password was. She went ahead and moved herself into the new spare bedroom allotted to her. She went back to eating at the Slytherin table during meals, though everyone kept a wide berth from her.

She felt like she wore a sign on her forehead announcing what a doofus she was. What a ridiculous, myopic idiot she was. Did she really think that a Gryffindor could trust a Slytherin? Did she really think that her life was so simple?

So, because she hated herself, for the next week, she retreated into herself. And she ate, because that was easier than any other method of coping.

Whatever brief glimpse of glory she'd tasted in being Hermione's lover, it was long lost. And she was miserable about it.

She had no idea what was to come.

...

One day, as she was leaving the dungeons from potions class, she was stuffing her first post-class snack into her mouth when someone tugged at her elbow.

"Millicent?"

Millicent spun around, hoping against hope that the soft voice belonged to Hermione. But to her surprise, it was Ginevra Weasley.

"What?" asked Millicent, hoping the girl would shut up and leave. She had no desire to deal with any Gryffindors today.

Ginny smiled sadly, and raised her arm, offering a hug. "Are you okay?"

Millicent was suspicious, but she was also deeply, desperately in need of attention, and physical touch. She found herself, despite her better instincts, falling into Ginevra's embrace. The other girl clasped her warmly, and Millicent did her best not to break out in sobs. As it was, she couldn't hide the shivers of pleasure and relaxation as she felt the other girl's breasts press against hers, and Ginny's perky athletic hip pressing into her thigh.

Ginny pressed a kiss near Millicent's ear, which led Millicent to briefly believe that the youngest Weasley was interested in resuming their fly-by-night liaison. But no such luck.

"I know about you and Hermione," said Ginny in a whisper. "What happened? I thought you two would surely be good together."

"I... I said some... idiotic things," Millicent confessed in an even lower whisper, which was garbled by the threatening of tears in her voice. Ginny asked for her to repeat herself, and she did, only slightly louder.

Ginny proceeded to nod, and with a gentle squeeze, dismissed Millicent from their embrace. Millicent reluctantly let go, wondering when the next time she'd get to touch another human being would be. It wouldn't be soon, that was for sure.

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said, and Millicent believed her. "I... would you like me to help you out?"

"What could you possibly do?" Millicent asked, her voice nearly a wail, but she controlled herself just enough to keep her voice down to a mere whimper.

"Probably not much," Ginny said, and smiled in that sweet, sorrowful way she seemed to be quite good at today. "I'll talk to her."

"That... would be appreciated," Millicent said, her heart sinking. She doubted it would be any help at all. "If she... wants to see me, I'll be in the library all study period."

"I'll tell her," Ginny said, and with a final parting smile, she dashed off.

Millicent, for her part, dug in her bag and found herself another wrapper of pumpkin pasty, and opened it. As she did so, she looked down at her body with some amount of dismay.

She couldn't blame all of her newfound weight to Hermione, that was for certain - she'd been getting fatter both in the relationship, and after. It was all her doing, either way. And surely she would die alone, with no one but her cats for company, because she would be too fat to get out her front door by the time she was fifty.

Ah well. Might as well enjoy it. She sure as hell wasn't getting any thinner.

She munched on the pasty and walked slowly all the way to the library.

...

She didn't actually expect Hermione to come. If she was a better Slytherin, she told herself later, she would have come up with some sort of clever scheme to get Hermione back.

But as it happened, she didn't have that kind of skill all the time. Not when she was so abject and lonely.

Still, she should have planned just the tiniest bit ahead, just in case Hermione did come.

Unfortunately, Millicent did no such thing. She merely sat there in the library, absorbing one of the remaining books on Hermione's list doggedly and without thought to what she was doing. She was bound and determined to get through them all, even though it meant a stab of pain every time she looked at the damned list Hermione had written. Maybe it was self-flagellating; she didn't bloody know.

And of course, given the fact that Millicent did no planning, Hermione did indeed show up at the library that very afternoon. She had a stubborn look on her face, and the rage of a tiger in her eyes, but she seemed at least willing to listen.

Ginny did good work, and fast, Millicent noticed. She wondered what sorts of tricks Ginny knew, and how she could use them herself. The girl must have picked up something, after having slutted her way around half the school.

"So," Hermione said, and threw herself into the chair nearest Millicent with a vigorous thump. Millicent saw the challenge in her former lover's eyes, and she closed the book she'd been reading, a little bit disconcerted to be suddenly faced with the person who had been occupying so much of her mind for so long. "You wanted to see me."

"And apologize," Millicent said, swallowing hard. For the briefest of moments, she couldn't remember what she was apologizing for. "I was saying things I've said a thousand times," she said, "but as of recently, they're also things I haven't meant. Things I've had to say just to survive in Slytherin," she said, and she realized she was blathering. But Hermione was staring at her, intently looking at her. Perhaps this was working. "But clearly that's stopped working. Probably because my heart isn't in it anymore."

"What," Hermione said scathingly, "your heart isn't behind your genocidal ideas anymore? Good for you, Millicent. Have a cookie."

"It's more complex than that," Millicent began defensively, but as she saw Hermione's rage begin to stir, she added, "but also, yes, I understand what you're saying. I shouldn't have been thinking those things, ever. But it's... it's so hard to not when that's what everyone else around you believes. I mean," she went on, "if your parents had told you since you were born that a certain kind of people was out to destroy you and your family, and that you must prepare yourself to defeat them at any cost because the threat they posed was so great... you might think that way, too."

"I would never," Hermione said fiercely. "Oppression is against everything I believe in."

"I mean," Millicent said sadly, feeling like she was bumbling along in the most pathetic fashion, "Sure, but you're different than most people, Hermione. You seem to have this moral compass as strong as bissyroot. And me?" She shrugged. "I guess I don't have nearly so strong of one. But that also means I can change, Hermione. And learn a new kind of belief system. Even... even yours."

Hermione seemed to absorb this. She stared ahead of her, and then buried her face in her hands. She sat there for many tense moments.

Millicent felt like she was going to spew with the tension in her body.

Then, with a groan, Hermione said slowly, "Against my better judgment, I forgive you, Millicent." She raised her face slowly and made eye contact with Millicent.

Millicent couldn't remember ever seeing Hermione Granger cry before. She saw Hermione's eyes brimming with tears, and they were glossy with them, like dewdrops on iris leaves in the morning.

"Shh," Millicent said kindly, heaving herself up from behind the table with effort, and walking over to Hermione's chair. She proceeded to offer her arms to Hermione, like Ginny had offered that morning, and Hermione wrapped herself around Millicent's generously proportioned waist, burying her face in Millicent's soft expansive tummy.

"Are you all right?" she asked, and she hesitantly put her hand in Hermione's hair.

Hermione nodded, and breathed heavily. Her breath was hot and touched Millicent's sensitive tum skin, and she shivered in response. She let her other hand wander down Hermione's shoulder until she met the other girl's soft shoulder blade, and she massaged it with her thumbs in the places it felt tense and stressed.

"Oh," Hermione murmured, again breathing out some hot air against Millicent's soft belly. She proceeded to pull Millicent even closer into her face, and Millicent was embarrassed to see that Hermione's face wasn't even visible to her, she had so much squishy lard around her middle. It was a nice deep pillow for Hermione to sink her face into. Practically a comforter, given how wide she was.

Soon, Hermione pulled herself out of there, and sniffled a little bit. Millicent offered Hermione the hem of her cardigan, and Hermione thankfully blew her nose onto it.

"Are we back to normal?" asked Millicent, not believing any of this quite yet.

"I mean," Hermione said, with a sigh, and she wiped her face with both of her hands. "Would you like to be?"

"Yeah," Millicent said, her voice low and dark. "I would."

"And I suppose I do, too," Hermione said, taking a deep breath and extending her hand to take Millicent's. Millicent, for her part, felt herself blushing a little bit as Hermione tried to pull her into a sitting position on top of her. "I didn't think I would miss it, but I did."

Then Hermione firmly pulled Millicent on top of her. "I'm too heavy," protested Millicent, trying to squirm up off of Hermione's seductively soft and squishy thighs. She felt off-balance, though she genuinely liked where this was leading.

"I don't mind," Hermione said with a hint of a smirk through her tears. She held on tight to Millicent, grabbing her around the middle. She could barely get her arms around the other girl, but Millicent was thankfully just shy of being too fat to squeeze completely. "In fact, I like it," she said softly, directly in Millicent's ear.

Millicent felt herself shiver, and her panties grow a little bit wetter.

"Then that makes two of us," she said, her hand squeezing between their two fleshy middles until she managed to get a handful of Hermione's fine squishy belly. It seemed to have deflated a little bit since she'd last handled it.

"You seem a little bit thinner," observed Millicent, "Have you been eating?"

"Not really," Hermione said with a low groan. "A half-hearted attempt to try and lose a few."

"I think you'd better get them back," Millicent said shyly, and then, drawing her finger across Hermione's fine round cheek, she added, "Indeed, I think you could do with a bit of plumpening up, besides."

"I'm amenable to that," Hermione said. She then patted Millicent's succulent behind and encouraged the other girl to get up. Millicent did so, but kept on holding Hermione's hand.

They left the library, and Hermione dragged them in the direction of Millicent's new room, down the moving staircases. "More privacy there," she confessed, "I admit I was thinking about that when I suggested it as a solution."

"You should have asked me before you did that, you know," Millicent said, then instantly regretted it.

Hermione, however, didn't react badly - she just nodded. "You're right. I was too sure of myself."

"It's something I like about you, though," Millicent said, squeezing Hermione's hand. She felt nearly delirious to be back in Hermione's good graces again. She figured this chance was not to be spoiled, not for all the elves at Hogwarts.

"I hear you," Hermione said, and she sounded a little bit sad. "I like it about me, too. But you know what, Millicent?" she went on, her voice a little more quiet than before. "I think I've changed since I met you."

"Ah," Millicent said, and she frowned. "In what way?"

"I think a good way," Hermione said, and she sighed. "It's gotten me a bit out of my head. Stopped me from chasing rainbows that weren't real. Things like that. I was so dead-set on something being one way, and I guess it never occurred to me that I might have to look somewhere else for something better. Something real. Like this."

She stopped, and looked up at Millicent's face. Millicent was only a few inches higher, and Hermione stood slightly on tip-toe to lean in and give Millicent a robust kiss.

Millicent hadn't ever had such a miraculous kiss. In the way Hermione's tongue tasted her, there was something hungry and desperate.

And Millicent undeniably wanted more.

Neither of them noticed as a very bewildered Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter watched them on a different moving staircase, mouths agape as they watched the girls snog.

* * *

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